Grade your government - take the test now

On October 6, the European Commission released its much-vaunted plan for research and innovation – a massive compendium of ideas new and old, projects invented or borrowed. But it is, we think, pretty thoughtfully shaped into a coherent blueprint that could help improve Europe’s standing in the global marketplace for inventions, discoveries and innovations.

Most of the attention went to the policy itself. But tacked to the back of the document is a fascinating list of features that, in the Commission’s view, define what makes a good set of government policies for research and innovation. It invited the 27 EU members to use the list as a basis for evaluating their own national policies.

Well, fat chance of that happening without some prodding; what government ever really wants to be judged – especially by anyone expert in the particular policy field in question.

So, we propose applying some group pressure: Let’s grade the governments ourselves, using the Commission’s list.

So below, you will find a link to a simple online survey we have set up for you to judge your own government’s competence. Fill it in, press the submit button, and we will (anonymously) tally the results and publish them by country.

Now, you can argue over the way the Commission defines a good policy. For instance, not surprisingly, it thinks national cooperation with its own policies is important – so to make this questionnaire relevant to non-Europeans also, we have stripped all of the EU-speak out of the equation. And its views include some very recent examples of political correctness, such as the belief that policies should increasingly focusing on solving ‘grand societal challenges’ like climate change or the demographic time bomb, rather than simply be about supporting good research and innovation, whatever the discipline.

Still, the majority of its good-policy criteria read like a compendium of smart thinking on the topic from around the world. For instance, it tracks pretty well with what the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development thinks makes good policy in research and innovation. And in many respects, it fits our own views at Science|Business on what works and doesn’t work.

So take a moment and fill out the questionnaire online. We have greatly shortened the Commission’s rather wordy list – but if you’d like to see the original, look at Annex I of this document: http://ec.europa.eu/research/innovation-union/pdf/innovation-union-communication_en.pdf#view=fit&pagemode=none