ERAWATCH aims to provide a strategic intelligence service to support evidence-based policy-making in the research field in the context of the European Research Area.  ERAWATCH provides a structured set of information and analysis to all those involved in research policy-making in Europe, for example, policy-makers in national ministries and in the European Commission, via a public website.

• collects data on national and regional research structures, organisations and policy developments.
• organises and structure descriptive information on existing national and regional research activities.
• develops analysis and reporting activities on policies, their trends and the impacts of factors influencing them.

ERAWATCH focuses primarily on research policies, structures, programmes, and actors, but will also analyse other policies having an impact on research.

In order to receive support in the implementation of ERAWATCH, the European Commission (IPTS) awarded, following a call for tenders, a framework contract to the ERAWATCH Network asbl. The framework contract foresaw wo very important activities to be implemented by the network: a 'base-load' research inventory service and an intelligence service.

• The research inventory contains information on national and regional research structures, research actors and research policies in all EU Member States and the states associated to the Community’s research framework programmes.
  
• The intelligence service should provide regular and ongoing analyses of issues relevant to research policy-making. The analysis should, in part, be based on the inventory but also be complemented by other information.

Within the framework of the ERAWATCH Network contract other activities are also foreseen. All the activities are supported by quality-assured processes, management and governance mechanisms intended to ensure that the consortium delivers high-quality, timely and relevant reports to the Commission, based on allocating the best and most appropriate resources available to it, both inside and (as necessary) outside the current consortium.