The European Commission will outsource non-political programs such as FP7 to newly setup Executive agencies.

The task of executive agencies is to execute specific activities that would normally have been carried out by specific departments within the European Commission. As they concentrate on this management role, and have no policy remit, executive agencies are supposed to be more effective and more efficient in addressing the needs of their client base (in this case the research communities).

These agencies are new organisations established by the European Commission which will be entrusted with certain tasks relating to the management of one or more Community programmes. Project officers will be moving from the European Commission to these new Executive agencies.

The setup of these new agencies is likely to create a major disturbance for all at the end of this year when the transfer is due to take place.