In its areas of competence, the JRC's contribution will aim at establishing synergies with the relevant thematic priorities in the other specific programmes, notably through seeking complementarity between indirect and direct actions and through participation in the indirect actions, with a view to adding value, when appropriate, to the work carried out therein (e.g. through the comparison and validation of tests and methods or the integration of results for policy-making purposes).

As well as exploring the application of new technologies - DNA analysis for livestock identification, satellite image interpretation for crop acreage monitoring or fishing vessel identification, cross-correlation of isotopic analysis of beverages and foodstuffs to determine contents and origin, intelligence gathering from open sources, language technology to analyse multilingual documents - the JRC will continue to provide customers with the integrated knowledge that includes the entire cycle from data capture, data fusion, data mining through to visualisation and estimation.

Rules applicable to the JRC

The activities of a competitive nature conducted by the JRC shall consist of:

The JRC may participate in those activities on the same basis as third parties.

Direct action shall be carried out by the establishments of the JRC and shall in principle be entirely financed from the budget.

Where the activities conducted by the JRC for third parties involve procurement, the procurement procedure shall comply with the principles of transparency and equal treatment.

The research and technological development appropriations shall be used to carry out direct action, indirect action under the framework programme for research referred to in Article 166 of the EC Treaty, and the action referred to in Article 165 of that Treaty by participation in programmes and competitive activities conducted by the Joint Research Centre (JRC).