Too much talk of innovation?

Innovation: they all want more of it in Brussels. 

But some researchers fear this fixation spells bad news for EU science funding and are gearing up to get this message across in advance of next year’s mid-term review of Horizon 2020. 

Leading the charge is Peter Tindemans, secretary-general of grassroots forum Euroscience, who says, “We’re getting increasingly concerned there is more attention on innovation than on science in the EU.” 

Tindemans and others raised their concerns about what the focus on innovation means for future EU research policy at an event in Brussels earlier this month. 

Amanda Crowfoot, director of Science Europe, which represents national research funding agencies, echoed Tindemans, saying, “There’s a fear a shift to innovation is pushing out all the science.” 

Crowfoot pointed to a lack of science in the societal challenges pillar of Horizon 2020. “That’s not an unfortunate action – it’s a political choice,” she said. 

Rhetorically at least, innovation appears to be taking priority. The Commission stresses daily the necessity of more productivity, economic growth and jobs. Speeches by EU Research Commissioner Carlos Moedas press the urgency of making research marketable and successful. 

Horizon 2020 was designed to have a stronger focus on innovation and close-to-market activities than its predecessor programmes. Alongside the many research competitions it backs, the programme makes use of financial instruments, including debt and equity facilities, to trigger innovation. Moedas seems interested in expanding this element. 

However, converting some of the Horizon 2020 budget into loans, as happened last year, is not in the interest of science, said Crowfoot. “All this discussion around a greater shift from grants to loans is really out of step with the way science is funded.” 

Attack on collaborative research

Dirk Beckmann, head of transport in the German Aerospace Centre’s Brussels office, believes “collaborative research is under some attack at the moment”. 

Rather, industry-led research is firmly on the Commission’s agenda. “If I hear Mr Moedas talking about the future, I don’t think collaborative research is a big item in his mind,” he said. 

Beckmann senses the Commission’s long-term goal is to set up more joint technology initiatives (JTIs), the Europe-wide public private research partnerships, currently covering aeronautics, embedded computer systems, medicines, nanoelectronics, and fuel cells and hydrogen. 

However, Beckmann is sceptical about whether the EU-backed JTIs can deliver breakthroughs and is dubious about their benefits for researchers. 

“For industry, they’re great, but for research institutes they’re a disaster. Don’t say what they do is innovation – it is product development,” he said. 

Helge Pfeiffer, a researcher at KU Leuven and secretary-general of the European Aeronautics Science Network, agreed. 

While the aeronautics JTI is not bad per se, it takes money away from fundamental research. “There’s rumours aviation research in [Horizon 2020’s successor] FP9 will be completely done out of public-private partnerships. If this is true, you risk losing your science basis,” Pfeiffer said.

JTI research is industry-driven. “All deliverables and impacts are set in advance. It’s enormously prescriptive. For many universities it’s too much,” said Pfeiffer. 

Tindemans concedes the EU’s JTIs do have potential, but he said, “People risk forgetting there’s something before innovation. People are going around saying we’re going to fund innovation in the same way as basic science. It doesn’t work like that,” he said.

Creating bridges 

These opinions do not find favour with the aerospace and pharmaceuticals industries, two of Europe’s most successful and research-intensive sectors.

It is entirely appropriate for the EU to try create bridges between research and marketable products, said Pierre Meulien, head of the EU's €3.3 billion pharma research partnership, the Innovative Medicines Initiative. “I think we have to remember why some of these partnerships were created in the first place.” 

“One of the goals of IMI was to encourage a normally very competitive area to work together on certain topics that would eventually reduce the costs of production. Although one would like to separate R&D and innovation, companies in some sectors can’t bring products to market on their own any more. It’s now an end-to-end thing,” Meulein said. 

The theme was picked up at an aerospace event held at the European Parliament this week, where Keith Nurney, head of EU Aerospace R&T programmes at Rolls Royce, defended the JTIs, saying they support the development of valuable intellectual property and a skilled engineering base. 

Rolls Royce is part of the EU-backed Clean Sky programme, which pools research and expertise to develop quieter and cleaner aircraft. 

“Remember, 60 per cent of the [programme] money goes to our partners – small businesses and universities – not the big players,” said Nurney. Corporate grants for research are generally awarded on the basis that the private sector matches funding.

The research being done under Clean Sky could be revolutionary. “We have the opportunity to create the biggest and cleanest engines in the world,” Nurney said.

Airbus also participates in Clean Sky. Nathalie Errard, Airbus’ senior vice president and head of Europe and NATO affairs, said it is grants under JTIs, rather than loans, that her company looks for from the Commission. 

“For the long term cycle, loans are not what’s needed for upstream success,” she said. Cutting industry support could lead to next-generation technologies being developed abroad, she added.

Political goals 

German centre-right MEP Hans-Olaf Henkel has sympathy for the research community’s position. “We should abstain from pushing Horizon 2020’s direction more and more towards political or even primarily economic goals, such as employment and business growth, at the expense of social sciences and humanities,” he told Science|Business. 

Henkel is also wary about making researchers the extended workbench of industry. 

Project development, “should be left to the business community, and as parliamentarians we should use our impact to remind the business community of that responsibility, rather than keep on funding it ourselves,” he said.