The main objective of the study is to assess the progress made by the Member States in the implementation of the Lisbon Strategy, in particular with regard to private and public R&D investment and on the contribution to the realisation of the European Research Area.

More specifically the study sought to:

• Assess the evolution of national policy mixes in the perspective of the Lisbon-goals with particular focus on the national R&D investments targets and on the articulation of research policies with other policies in particular to foster private R&D investments;
• Assess the contribution of national policy mixes to the realisation and better governance of the European Research Area; Analyse the evolution of the policies and their performance in a comparable manner;
• Support mutual learning in the Lisbon reform process through better understanding of the success and failures in national research policies to address main weaknesses of the research system, increase R&D investments and strengthen the innovation capacity;
• Contribute to the improvement of the information collection and the structure of the Research Inventory;
• Contribute to the further development of the analytical framework and guidelines and implications for possible analytical country reports 2010.
• Provide input for and appraisal of the research related items of the Commission assessments 2008 of the progress reports on the implementation of the National Reform Programmes.