For years of participation in 5FP, clear indications are that Lithuanian RTD and industry still are not fully prepared for the full participation in the European projects of such a scale. It can be pointed out that there are a few reasons for such a situation: late joining of the programme (Lithuania signed the agreement for participation in 5FP as the last Candidate Country), little or no experience in organizing consortia for 5FP projects, inadequate experience in proposal preparation and information and partner searching skills using internet possibilities and EU databases and so on. Activities concerning 5FP in Lithuania gained speed only in 2001-2002, when we finally adapted ourselves to the terminology of the EC, rules and requirements, and gained enough experience in proposal preparation. During 5FP years with Lithuanian participation 79 RTD, TN and CRAFT projects were submitted by 32 Lithuanian organizations. The highest submission rate was reached by Vilnius Gediminas Technical University (8 successful from 12 submitted), Kaunas University of Technology 3/12 and Vilnius University 3/7. In the group of Research institutes leaders are Semiconductor Physics institute 2(4) and Institute of Chemistry and Chemistry Technology 1(3). Among SMEs the clear leader is "Pamarkas", which have 2 successful from 4 submitted proposals. A good result can be an indication that even 37 proposals were submitted by the SMEs compared to 42 proposals submitted by the R&D entities.

As previously mentioned, the largest part of successful proposals were submitted in 2001, when Lithuania took part in special calls for the Candidate Countries with great success. The success rate for these calls reached 50 %, which was a great success for our researchers. Gained experience will be of great value for Lithuanian participants during the years of 6FP, when the participation fee for the FP programme will reach 100 %.

The budget for successful RTD projects in GROWTH programme with Lithuanian participation during the years of 5FP reached 11.5 MEuros, from which 0.79 MEuros will be EC commitment to the Lithuanian participants. Up to now (2002-08-30) 25 RTD and CRAFT projects are still in the negotiation stage, therefore the final score of EC contribution for the Lithuanian participants still unclear. The overall budget of the projects under negotiation is 47.7 MEuros, and in the case of successful negotiations Lithuanian partners can expect 2.19 MEuros. Also it can be pointed out that budget for successful projects significantly raised in 2002 reached 46.7 % of the overall amount of EC contribution for Lithuanian participation in the GROWTH programme.

There were 49 unsuccessful projects, which were of great concern for Lithuanian NCP system. The Lithuanian part in these projects were quite large - 7.24 M.Euros. But in many cases Lithuanian partners were unable to improve the quality of the projects, because they mainly were only partners in the projects and had only minor roles in project preparation.

Lithuanian organizations have good collaboration experience in 5FP working with Germany, Great Britain, France Spain and Belgium partners. Partners from these countries typically are also project coordinators. For the future projects partners search it can pointed out the unsatisfied level of collaboration with Austria, Bulgaria, Russia, Slovakia, Hungary and also with our neighbourhood countries from Baltic region. New collaboration can lead to the new interesting projects and new RTD results.