Hands off Europe’s R&D funding

The European Research Council and the other new instruments in the Framework Programme 7 have given a new impetus to European research policy. “But this does not mean we can rest on our laurels,” EU Science and Technology Commissioner Janez Potočnik told a meeting of the ERC Scientific Council earlier this week at the first research-related event of the incoming Portuguese Presidency.

This is an edited version of the Commissioner’s speech in which, he called on member states to use structural funds to update their scientific infrastructures.

Science and Technology Commissioner Janez Potočnik

We put forward a Green paper for consultation on this issue in April of this year, setting out a range of important challenges we need to address.

The Commission welcomes fresh thinking, and I have specifically invited a contribution to the debate from the ERC’s scientific Council.

This of course does not mean that I've taken my eye off the Framework Programme. While research policy is wider than the Framework Programme, the latter remains the central component of our strategy and a powerful motor for the broader objectives of the European Research Area.

Equally important, the debate on the European Research Area forces us to re-examine the contribution of the Framework Programme to achieving these broader objectives, and to consider how we can best use the resources at our disposal.

We have a pretty narrow window of opportunity to get this right, and I don't want to miss it. If you'll allow me, I'd like to set out some of the key principles as I see them.

First, we need to address the underlying structural problems faced by Europe's research community.

One of the objectives of the Framework Programme has been to overcome the fragmentation of European research by bringing together scientists across the continent who are working on the same or inter-linked issues.

Still trailing the US

The ERC has a structural rationale which is, however, substantially different. It arises from Europe's relatively poor performance in research at the frontiers of science. The concern is not related to quantity – Europe is the world’s number one producer of scientific papers. But we trail behind the United States in our ability to produce the best – and this also means the most influential – research.

We must improve. This is a need, not a desire. Our society, our economy, is changing. We cannot compete as a knowledge economy without being at the very forefront of knowledge creation.

The Green Paper states very clearly that the problem is a structural one, particularly as regards the Europe’s university system. There is a need for structural reform of our universities. Many of them are good, but few are really outstanding. We need far more concentration and specialisation.

I know that the Scientific Council is very aware of this issue and has taken it to heart in designing the ERC's strategy, in particular as regards the support for young and up-and-coming researchers.

And I am convinced that the ERC will make a major contribution to the reform of our universities, by identifying the very best research leaders and encouraging greater attention to flexibility and the development of research careers on the part of host institutions.

Above all, it will contribute to generating real competition between universities for research talent across national borders.

Resources, resources

My second key principle is the need to bring all appropriate resources to bear on the development of Europe’s research capacity

The new Framework Programme has a budget of about €54 billion over 7 years. This represents a significant increase in real terms compared to the last programme. The ERC, with an average annual budget of more than €1 billion per year – about 15 per cent of the total – represents a good proportion, but by no means all, of this increase. Spending has risen or will rise for all parts of the Framework Programme.

I would nevertheless argue that the EU is still not taking sufficient steps to face up to the challenges posed by our competitors, present and future.

We need to rethink how we use sources of funding. The ERC will make the most of Europe’s research capacities, and promote the best research talents we have and we can attract. But there remains the problem of building excellence across the continent, where capabilities are very uneven.

It is important to address this issue. But not with the Framework Programme, where no one is served by allocating geographically. The Framework Programme, as I’ve already said, is about excellence.

But we do have an instrument to address this need for capacity-building. The structural funds, one-third of the EU’s budget earmarked for helping the less developed Member States. And that development can, indeed should, be based on knowledge. I appreciate that Member States have many competing priorities. But research must be put more squarely on the map of structural priorities, if the less well-off regions are to catch up rather than slip further behind their peers.

In line with the recently published guidelines, I advocate a more coherent use of these financial instruments so that they support science and research. This issue will be the subject of a Communication to be adopted by the Commission in a matter of weeks.