Pressure mounts for ERC reorganisation, to cut red tape

The European Research Council’s new secretary general, Andreu Mas-Colell, and its acting director, Jack Metthey, both support a reorganization of top management to help the agency establish itself as a world-class frontier research organization.

Merging the two positions was one of the recommendations made by an independent review last week, which called for urgent changes to avoid red tape and excessive bureaucracy dealing “a deadly blow” to the European Research Council. The ERC, created in 2007, has emerged as a high-prestige funder of basic research – with stiff competition across Europe for its grants. The agency is part of the European Union’s flagship R&D effort, Framework Programme 7.

The review’s main criticism centres on what it terms “the misalignment of rigid rules with the different nature of a frontier science agency”. The message is that an institution that aims to contribute to European science being cutting-edge and supporting breakthrough frontier research needs to change how it operates.

“Science and management must be reconciled within the overall structure rather than to constitute two separate worlds as in the present situation,” the review panel, chaired by Latvia’s former president Vaira Vike-Freiberga, concluded.

Job fusion

Vike-Freiberga and her team are keen to eliminate the “artificial division” that exists between scientific decision-making and bureaucratic implementation, and therefore recommended merging the roles of secretary general and the director of the executive agency. “The fusion of the two functions would provide a real chance to reunify what is artificially split by the decision/implementation – science/bureaucracy divides,” the report said.

Mas-Colell favours the idea, saying that the ERC would benefit from such leadership. “It’s a good feature, totally independent of who is in the position,” he told Science|Business in an interview the day after the report was published, refusing to be drawn on whether he would accept such a combined role should he be offered it. “The report gives a gentle push in the direction of a more professionalized but scientist-run organization, more in line with other research councils and the NSF,” the US National Science Foundation, he said.

The ERC was formally set up as a European funding body for investigator-driven frontier research with an emphasis on excellence. Scientists apply for grants in an open competition, and are selected by peer-review committees of scientists rather than by programme administrators – just as the US NSF and other successful national research councils operate. When it first opened, it was flooded with applications – more than 9,000; 97% were rejected – one of the highest rejection rates in the world which, while it caused some political problems, also established the agency’s grants as the gold-standard prize for Europe’s top researchers. Since then, however, the agency’s annual spending, staff and administrative rule book has expanded. 

Mas-Colell, who has been a professor of economics at Harvard University and Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona, took over from the ERC’s first secretary-general, Ernst-Ludwig Winnacker, on 1 July this year. The acting director, Metthey, is a scientist and an EU official since 1988. The third top official, the President and Chair of the Scientific Council, is Prof. Fotis Kafatos of Imperial College London.

‘Baroque’ bureaucracy

The report notes that it is “telling” that the position of director remains without a permanent appointee, saying “it is possible the potential candidates for the position saw it as a demotion of their career development.”

“A former colleague once described the ERC governance architecture as ‘baroque’”, acting director Metthey said by email when asked for his reaction to the recommendation to merge the two positions. “During the last three years, the relationship with the Scientific Council and its Secretaries General has always been excellent, but merging the Director and SecGen posts would represent a critical step in the maturation process of the ERC. By and large, each recommendation which would help in establishing the ERC as a world-class frontier research organization deserves full attention."

The independent review was also keen to underscore that the “ERC has succeeded beyond expectations in attracting scientists across Europe and abroad” and that “its initial successes are of strategic importance for the long term future of European science”. However, it was quite clear that it considers it time for change if the ERC wanted to achieve its goals in a professional and sustainable way.

“It cannot be expected that an administration performs in the long term with the kind of “missionary” spirit prevailing at the time of a promising but uncertain start,” the report says.

A user-friendly system

The review panel describes the frustration and dissatisfaction among scientific council members and scientific reviewers of existing rules and practices. One recommendation is to put in place a more user-friendly system for reviewers so that they are not discouraged in the future by red tape and unwieldy accreditation processes.

The report doesn’t deny the importance of accountability and preventing fraud and mismanagement, but says that “excessively bureaucratic procedures should not detract from the mission”.

Mas-Colell concurs. “The world of science is full of risk,” he said. “It doesn’t make sense to count how many hours a researcher works. You have to trust the researchers and then evaluate the results, not the day-to-day functioning.”

While the focus of the review is on the structures and mechanisms of the ERC, Mas-Colell is keen to emphasize the first half of the report’s title: “Towards a world class frontier research organisation.” Whatever form the organization takes, what matters are the results, he stressed.

‘Champions’ league’

“Europe needs a research council of the dimension of the National Science Foundation” in the U.S., he said. “That’s the first milestone we want to reach in terms of size.” In five years’ time, the European Research Council will be distributing €1.7 billion in its calls, but this will still be one-third of the NSF budget, Mas-Colell pointed out. Promoting more innovation and research will be “a good development for the EU” as a whole, he said.

EU Research Commissioner Janez Potočnik said last week that the ambition in 2007 had been to “create the European Champions' league of top researchers.” While a lot had already been done to achieve this, there was certainly no room for complacency, he said. The commission will formally respond to last week’s report by October.

“Difficulties have arisen that may start endangering the brilliant success achieved so far” by the ERC, Vike-Freiberga said in Brussels when she handed over the report to the European Commission. Still, she described the ERC as “a great success story waiting to be continued.” As long as its recommendations are heeded, presumably.