‘To identify the rising stars…’

The newest agency in Brussels is barely a fortnight old. It’s operating temporarily with a small staff borrowed from other agencies around Europe. And it’s still sorting out its computer systems, rule books and organisational charts.

But if the European Research Council succeeds in its mission, its impact on science and academia will be vast. It will wield a seven-year budget of €7.51 billion, with the power to award large research grants that will steer the scientific agenda in Europe for years to come. But its method of awarding the money is more important than the money itself.

By selecting the grant-winners with the help of independent panels of international scientists, rather than in committees of Brussels bureaucrats, the ERC will introduce an unheard-of degree of competition among researchers and universities. And that could transform the way academia works – or doesn’t work – in Europe.

“It’s competition. It will identify rising stars. And it will identify good institutions at the same time,” says its secretary-general, Ernst-Ludwig Winnacker. While the ERC grants will be awarded to individual scientists, over time a pattern will emerge showing which institutions have the most winners and which have the least. And the losers will have to start examining themselves – and, hopefully, improving.

“There are good and bad universities in the world. We have to rely here on competition for excellence” to improve performance overall, says Winnacker.

‘Something has to be done’

Competition for excellence is the leitmotif of the new agency – and, to hear Winnacker talk about it, there lies the key to Europe’s competitiveness in science. There are many great scientists in Europe, he says – but they and their institutions need to be held to a higher, international standard to succeed. He recently counted that just 24 of the Nobel prizes in the sciences went to Europeans in the past 15 years – barely a third of the 66 that went to the US. Only a handful of European universities are in the top tier of international academic institutions, according to most global rankings. “Something has to be done,” Winnacker says.

And, judging from his track record, he’s just the man to do it. For nine years president of the German Research Foundation, Winnacker made friends and enemies by introducing tougher competition for the €2 billion budget wielded by that agency. The climax came last year, when the foundation assembled an international panel – virtually no Germans allowed – of scientific experts to judge impartially the quality of the country’s leading research universities. The prize: A special “excellence” label and a bigger share of the agency’s budget. The shock: Rather than scattering the money around Germany, the foundation followed the experts’ recommendations and selected just three universities.

Winnacker chuckles at the memory of the political ruckus that resulted: “It was wonderful. But after three months, all the (state) ministers still sent me Christmas letters. Perhaps they were happy to see me go” to Brussels.

English-only, please

He’s off to a fast start now. From the formal launch ceremony in Berlin on 27 and 28 February, the ERC plans to start accepting online grant applications from scientists on 18 March.

It has already chosen the 240 scientists (10 per cent from outside Europe) who will, sitting in 20 panels for different scientific disciplines, whittle through the applications. The applications must be in English, to facilitate the international judging – a new experience for many European scientists, accustomed to seeking grants only in their home countries. How many applicants will there be? No one knows yet – perhaps 3,000, perhaps 10,000. By November, the panels will winnow the crop to between 200 and 250 winners. They will share up to €300 million in this first round of grants. In 2008, the Council will increase its grants to €600 million; and the year after, to €900 million.

How will the money be apportioned? Winnacker has no idea; it depends entirely on the quality of the applications, and the opinion of the judging scientists. A guess, he says, is that it may follow – “plus or minus 10 per cent” – the distribution seen at other grant agencies: 15 per cent to humanities and social sciences, 40 per cent to life sciences, and 45 per cent to physical sciences. But the geographical distribution is totally unpredictable, he says. While big countries have more researchers, “there may be pockets of excellence” in surprising places, he says. “Of course there will be a very uneven distribution – but we don’t bother about this. We are focused only on excellence.”

Slowing the brain drain

And the young. This year’s round of funding, for so-called Starting Grants, is aimed at principal investigators who received their doctorates two to nine years ago. (Funding for senior scientists, targeted at “high-risk” research, will start in 2008.) The reason for the early emphasis on the young: That’s where the ERC can make the biggest, quickest difference. Except in some northern European countries, it’s virtually impossible for a young researcher to get grants. By filling that gap, the ERC can help slow the brain drain of scientists to the US and elsewhere – offering ERC-funded opportunities for advancement that their own universities can’t or won’t provide.

“If you are young, and you see people becoming professors at 55, you rush as fast as you can to the United States. We all did that.” Winnacker, a molecular biologist, spent years abroad in the US, Switzerland and Sweden, before returning home.

But greatest of all could be the ERC’s long-term impact on universities. Scientists, he says, “are gypsies and we are always looking for the best peers. It’s not enough to be good; you have to have the proper surroundings in which you can make a career.

“Therefore, the host institutions have to be good. If they just sit there, like a doctor who opens an office and hopes somebody has an accident in front of his door, nothing will happen. They have to be proactive, and go out and find the best. That’s what good universities do. Their rectors are in airport lounges, talking to people around the world about whether they would like to come to their institutions. That is the essence of the good institution.”