EU Research Commissioner Carlos Moedas has sent a poster with his priorities to civil servants in his research directorate, and expects it to be pinned on office walls before they escape on holiday – “just so they remember me over the summer break,” he said.
The poster, which Moedas presented alongside the Director-General for Research and Innovation Robert-Jan Smits, breaks down the Commissioner’s new mantra, the three ‘Os’ – “Open innovation, open science, openness to the world” – into a list of all the items he wants to tackle while in office, starting in earnest in September when the Commission reconvenes.
There are newly-sprung ideas – such as the creation of the European Innovation Council and several new venture capital funds of funds – and the ones threaded some months previously, like the seal of excellence and the European Science Cloud.
In addition, the Commission wants to improve the standing of the research it funds, with Moedas saying a new European Research Integrity Initiative, with clear standards and mechanisms to tackle scientific misconduct, will be launched by the end of this year.
The new poster makes reference for the first time to an Ombudsman to police scientific misconduct, but the Commissioner has not confirmed whether he will formalise this idea by creating a new official role.
In June, Moedas made public his manifesto for his term in office, following eight months of what he described as, “listening, visiting member states, looking at the evidence, and developing my own views.”
Going casual
The Commissioner’s new poster did not go unnoticed on Twitter. Moedas’ predecessor Máire Geoghegan-Quinn was struck, not so much by the long to-do list, but the way Moedas and Smits presented it without ties, a fashion statement previously alien to Brussels, but one that seems to be slowly gaining acceptance in Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras’ perennially tie-less era.
“Casual Friday?” she queried.
Carlos Moedas presenting his to-do list to DG Research
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