Scale innovation down to the citizen

MEP Judith Merkies

“The sustainable world is not going to work if we don’t have citizens who want to buy green cars,” the former lawyer and Commission official told Science|Business.

Merkies, a member of the Socialists & Democrats grouping in the European Parliament, believes Europe needs to put more focus on individuals. “How does policy really affect the individual? We always focus on groups, but individuals drive so many changes these days. New communications technologies enable all people to voice their opinions, by Twitter, blogs, or commenting on news articles.”

An R&D policy that focuses on individuals would help the EU as a whole to connect with its citizens, says Merkies. “We are good at meta-talk in Europe, but we are not so good at being tangible. I believe there is a very personal edge to energy, digitalisation and e-health. We should always look for that edge [to] bridge the gap between research, innovation, the market and the individual.”

One area of R&D policy that would enable Europeans to participate directly is domestic power generation. “Microgeneration would give citizens the opportunity to generate energy at a very small level. In your own house, your own apartment, or with a group of citizens in your own neighbourhood. We would have the support and the participation of the citizen, and the participation of the industry and network providers, who produce the solar panels and operate the grid,” she says.

A group of MEP’s interested in the field will come together to discuss legislation that would promote such microgeneration schemes, according to Merkies. “Network providers must allow small feeds-ins into their network. You would have to install smart meters to measure how much people feed into the grid. You would also have to set up facilities to reward them and to stimulate people to start doing this,” she says.

Healthy ageing is another very important issue for Merkies, who hosted a conference on the topic in April. One of the speakers was the European Commissioner for Research, Innovation and Science, Máire Geoghegan-Quinn. “I wholeheartedly support the Commissioner’s focus on healthy ageing, one of the grand societal challenges. She really thinks healthy ageing is of paramount importance, we share that interest. E-health could help to keep people mobile, happy and healthy for longer,” says Merkies.

Merkies, born in Canada of Hungarian descent, was elected into Parliament in July 2009 Before that she worked as manager for the European Commission’s MEDIA programme, set up to support Europe’s audiovisual industry, and as executive manager at the European Music Office, a non-profit group representing author’s rights collection bodies.

The influential ITRE committee is currently shaping the Parliament’s verdict on the research and innovation’s share of the EU budget for 2011. Despite her training as a lawyer and her experience as a Eurocrat, Merkies believes that it will be challenging to guide some of the legislative initiatives she supports through Parliament: “We have a very conservative parliament, which is worrying. In times of economic crisis, a lot of people tend to look backward instead of forward. There are all kinds of vested interests that are putting a break on some ambitious, green, legislative proposals.”

Merkies cites the car industry as area where she feels the Parliament might be hesitant to legislate. “Some people are saying that in these times of crisis, the automotive industry is not able to change; that they will need a long research process to come up with new, greener models.”  She stresses that setting emissions limits for cars is just as important as research funding, “The sustainable society is also made through ambitious legislation.”

Underlining the difference between the Greens and Socialists & Democrats in Parliament, Merkies emphasises the importance of steering a line between environmental ambitions and helping the automotive industry to innovate. “Legislation must be innovative and ambitious, but it must also be realistic. I absolutely want to retain the industries we have, I want to keep them in Europe.”