Including a continuous and formalised Technology Watch task makes an R&D project proposal stronger and should translate into a better assessment in a competitive public funding call.
The evaluation criteria do not need to include a specific section explicitly called “Technology Watch”. Technology Watch directly affects essential aspects of any research and development project: knowledge of the State of the Art, methodology, risk management, adaptability and the exploitation of results.
For this reason, properly incorporating Technology Watch improves the quality of a proposal and increases its chances of securing funding.
In funding calls where many excellent proposals compete for a limited budget, that difference can be decisive.
Before founding Antara, I spent more than 20 years evaluating R&D project proposals, mainly within international programmes. I have also trained candidate evaluators.
I often came across good projects whose implementation plans did not include formal Technology Watch processes throughout their execution. As an evaluator, I saw this absence as increasing the level of risk: if, over several years of implementation, a new technology, a relevant patent, a scientific breakthrough or a regulatory change emerged that could affect the project, how would the consortium detect it? And, above all, how would it respond?
When evaluating a proposal funded with public resources — and taxpayers’ money must be treated with the utmost care — it is not enough to assess whether the idea is interesting. The team’s ability to manage uncertainty and deliver the expected results must also be considered.
A project with systematic mechanisms for detecting relevant changes during its execution provides better protection for public investment.
The widespread adoption of generative AI has considerably raised the formal quality of proposals. Preparing a well-structured, coherent, comprehensive and visually polished proposal is much easier than it was only a few years ago. Generative AI does not turn a poor project into a good one. But it does reduce the perceived differences between proposals.
Many very well-prepared proposals now compete at the top of the ranking, and an excellent project can fail to secure funding simply because others have scored a few tenths of a point more.
So the question should no longer be only: “Is our proposal good?”
We should also ask: “How do we demonstrate that we are prepared to manage technological risks and uncertainty throughout the project?”
Every R&D proposal must demonstrate a solid understanding of the State of the Art (SOTA).
But the SOTA describes the knowledge available when the proposal is being prepared and, in multi-year projects, it can quickly become outdated. In many cases, the project begins more than a year after the SOTA was originally drafted.
As we explain in detail in our article on the State of the Art and Technology Watch:
The State of the Art is a snapshot; Technology Watch is a continuous process.
The role of Technology Watch is to keep that knowledge up to date and detect changes that could affect the project’s initial assumptions and technical decisions.
Technology Watch therefore strengthens several aspects that are commonly assessed when evaluating a proposal:
| Project aspect | Contribution of Technology Watch |
|---|---|
| State of the Art | Keeps knowledge up to date throughout project execution. |
| Methodology | Introduces a systematic process for detecting and analysing changes. |
| Risk management | Helps identify developments that could affect initial assumptions or technical decisions. |
| Adaptability | Makes it easier to respond when new evidence emerges. |
| Impact and exploitation | Detects technological, regulatory or market changes that could affect the results. |
Technology Watch is not simply about “keeping informed”.
Technology Watch is a mechanism for managing technological risk.
And that difference should be reflected in the evaluation: two otherwise equivalent proposals should not receive the same assessment if one demonstrates that it will maintain structured Technology Watch throughout the project.
It is not enough simply to state in the proposal that “Technology Watch will be carried out”. For the task to genuinely strengthen the proposal, the evaluator must be able to understand what will be monitored, how the process will operate and how it will influence project decisions.
Technology Watch should be designed as a cross-cutting task supporting the different work packages throughout project execution. It should specify:
In complex, multi-year projects, specialised software can automate much of the monitoring, filtering and distribution of information among experts, while also maintaining traceability of the analysis.
The important point is that the proposal demonstrates that Technology Watch is a genuine task, with allocated responsibilities and resources, and directly connected to project risk management and decision-making.
Technology Watch should be designed while the proposal is being prepared, not improvised once the project has already begun.
Antara can help companies, technology centres and R&D consortia design a credible and executable Technology Watch task, defining its objectives, organisation, resources and technological support.
The objective is to integrate a process that genuinely strengthens the quality of the project and that, if the proposal secures funding, can be put into operation from the very beginning.
A good State of the Art demonstrates that you know where your project is starting from. Good Technology Watch demonstrates that you are prepared to keep making good decisions as the world continues to move on.