Life Scientific: Horizon 2020 is a policy instrument. Where does this leave the scientists?

These sobering remarks come at the climax of a provocative assessment of the general state of European scientific research, and the impact of the Horizon 2020 programme in particular, by Professor Karl Ulrich Mayer.

Mayer, distinguished sociologist and president of the Leibniz Association, used the Max Weber Programme lecture series to test contemporary science against cultural theory proffered by Weber, the father of modern social science.

Mayer’s paper, “From Max Weber’s “Science as a Vocation (1917) to “Horizon 2020”, contrasts current debates on basic versus applied research in European science policy with Weber’s own lecture to the German Association of Free Students in November 1917. Mayer sees this as the seminal description of research motivation and the practicalities of an academic career and the life scientific.

Inevitably, after nearly 100 years some of Weber’s messages are “outmoded and outdated”. Cultural and historical contexts have shifted, but Mayer believes Weber is a useful prism through which to view the institutional tensions of contemporary German science – and of Horizon 2020.

The shaping and formulation of Horizon 2020 reflects the fact that, “In a sense, the overall direction of EU research policy has shifted from economic industrial interests to policy interests in relation to EU policy goals, and from there to research in the public interest. Put differently, the enlarged scope of the research programmes reflects the increased ambitions of the European Union.”

In passing Mayer mocks the three “reinforcing priorities” of the Horizon 2020 programme, “dedicated” as they are to Excellent Science, Industrial Leadership and Societal Challenges. Does this imply, he asks, that research for Industrial Leadership and Societal Challenges is “not excellent science”?

The implicit theory is that, “the research funding spent on calls in these areas will actually bring about progress in achieving these policy objectives. So far, however, there is little evidence that this is actually the case, and almost no money is spent in the current and prior Framework Programme to find evidence for this,” Mayer says.

“If one actually examines the work programmes in the 7th Framework Programme, it seems that in the physical and life sciences investigators have been more successful in making sure that research can be conducted according to the state of the art. However, in social science, the topic with which I am most familiar, few opportunities seem to be provided within the calls to develop theories, databases and methods or to allow the time frames for those involved which would permit doing first-rate research,” Mayer says.

Weber set out six precepts for “Science as a Vocation”; Mayer goes one better, and it is in the seven critiques he offers that the most pointed reservations about the progress of Horizon 2020 are made.

1. The rhetoric of fairly general values and of a multitude of policy goals can be found in great abundance in the relevant documents – page after page after page. Whoever writes proposals in these areas has to identify with, or at least pay lip service to these values and goals.
2. Only very rarely are value and goal conflicts addressed, such as that between social innovation and social inclusion – which is suspicious.
3. There seem to be large discrepancies between what is necessary to achieve certain scientific goals and the durations, forms of organisation and level of funding.
4. Secondary rationality is common, in the sense that researchers adopt the goals of the calls to get hold of a part of the cake.
5. EU science has moved from research funding on behalf of economic interests, to research funding in the EU policy interest and now also funding in the public interest.
6. The emergence of the European research area gives ample evidence of how large and important the science subsystem has become in Europe in comparison to other social subsystems and European policy areas.
7. Europe is becoming increasingly important as our research funding environment. The EU increasingly wants to coordinate and structure not only its own research budget, but national research budgets too.

Ultimately, says Mayer, “The EU science effort obviously suffers from an overload of values, goals and policies. Because of this, it also suffers from an underdeveloped sober clarification of means-ends relationships. What does it take to do industrial research successfully? What does it take to do policy-related research successfully, and what does it take to conduct science in the public interest? 

“Too much of the European research effort is organised under one umbrella, with too many non-specific rules and too much administrative burden. This umbrella is too close to the political level of decision-making. What we need are institutional designs for European research funding which allow for three things: first, clarity of purpose; second, protection from direct political influence; and third, an institutional commitment to the values of science.”