FRIS included in the W&I decree

The so called W&I decree (decree of 30 April 2009 regarding the organization and financing of science and innovation policy), which regulates the institutions of the Science and Innovation policy fields, was amended at the beginning of 2019 to accommodate the restructuring of numerous scientific institutions.

In addition, a provision was introduced that obliges the institutions covered by the decree, as well as the universities and colleges, to supply research information digitally to the Flemish government. This currently concerns metadata of the research conducted within the institutions, not the concrete research results as such. The data supplied are made accessible via the FRIS portal (www.researchportal.be).

This obligation serves the following policy objectives:

- to conduct a more effective and efficient science policy, more and better information is needed about how the (public) funds allocated for research are ultimately spent;

- in order to promote innovation and mutual interaction, it is important that companies and other innovation actors can easily find out which research is being carried out in Flanders and which are the contact persons;

- Flanders has various reporting obligations to the federal government and to the European Union on research conducted in Flanders, which is funded from various sources. The fact that the data for these obligations will be centralized provides administrative simplification;

- more transparency towards citizens by showing what happens to the public funds spent on research.