| Thursday, April 20, 2000
On 18th January 2000 the European Commission adopted a Communication entitled
"Towards a European Research Area " (E.R.A.) which is meant to contribute to the
creation of better overall conditions for research in Europe. The Commission's hope is
that this Communication will spark a broad debate on the ways and means of increasing and
improving the co-ordination of the European research effort.
Thinking that ECCE should participate to this debate, and prepare a contribution, I
asked ECCE’s members to read the Communication and to send me their comments by March
31. I announced that I would then prepare a paper to be spread before Rome's meeting, in
order to be discussed and adopted and then sent to the Commission.
In the present paper, I will analyse the two received papers (from Mr. MFC THORN, ICE
Research & Innovation Committee, on 28/02/00, and from Antonio Adao da Fonseca, on
20/03/00, both papers are annexed). I will also give some further information on the
on-going process, and finally propose a position paper for ECCE.
The answers from ECCE’s members
I would first like to congratulate both authors to have devoted their time to prepare
an answer.
The answer of Mr. MFC THORN recognises that "the Communication is a serious
attempt to take stock of the existing EU research policy and its implementation through
the framework programmes. It should lead to a radically different Sixth Framework
Programme, and presents an opportunity to assess the strengths and weaknesses of the EU
programmes in influencing the evolution of a truly European research community".
But on the whole, it is a rather negative appraisal of the Communication: a
"stratospheric" view, broad philosophy rather than a strategic plan, imperfect
supporting data: the broad messages are probably correct, but detailed comparisons are
suspect, the correlations are unconvincing and the underlying messages not obvious, the
weakness of the consultation paper.
And instead of giving opinion on the proposal of the Commission, it raises some
questions that should be answered to, before any strategic approach.
Mr Antonio Adao da Fonseca’s paper gives a "loosely" answer to Mr
Thorn’s questions.
Here are the questions and the answers.
- What attracts able individuals into science and scientific R&D? Conversely, what
dissuades able individuals from choosing scientific R&D as a career goal? In the UK,
many of the brightest engineering graduates are being attracted into Financial Services,
where their analytical skills are valued and generously rewarded. Is the answer simply one
of financial reward?
- Able individuals are able at their choices. Professions are chosen very much according
to capacities and preferences, but social prestige, financial return and guarantees for
the future are most important. I am afraid, Financial Services are being rewarded very
much more. In fact, "money" is the goal. It is sad and wrong, because
"researchers" are leading the future. Progress comes from research. We know that
Carl Marx was wrong, but, nowadays, often people performing research find themselves to be
"the proletarians".
- What motivates companies to invest in R&D, and is their motivation strongly
influenced by fiscal policies of Governments? Are there significant differences between
product-oriented companies and services-oriented companies? In industries such as
engineering, do public sector procurement policies encourage or discourage company
investment in R&D?
- Only very significant fiscal policies stimulate research. Product companies invest in
products, and Service companies invest in people. This is a major difference, although
investment in products involves people and thus there is also an investment in people.
Furthermore, one can have royalties from products but not from "brains". Public
procurement policies stimulate research by demanding reduction of costs. But, in general,
Europeans do not like to take risks with novelties. Americans are indeed a lot more
favourable to innovation and they love technology.
- What encourages European research centres and research professionals to work in
conjunction rather than in isolation? Would more generous funding of inter-country
mobility of researchers between research centres stimulate more integration? Or would
inter-organisational research be better driven through generously funded but
professionally managed programmes?
- Mistrust between Europeans is still the rule. Inter-country mobility and research
require outside (that is, from the European Commission) stimulation. Inter-country
enterprise can also result from the need to spread costs or to gather government support.
- Why is the synergy between industry and academia much stronger and more successful in
the USA? Are there fiscal, cultural or legal conditions that create a climate of
investment in Innovation and Research, which could be translated into an EU strategy?
- Synergy between industry and academia requires common interests both in terms of results
(that is, profits) and professional achievement. Industry takes academics as theoretical
folk and Universities do not like pragmatic people. In most countries, Universities looks
inwards and act as co-operative bodies.
Finally, Mr Thorn suggests that attention needs to be given to understanding how
European research and researchers function, if any over-arching strategy for increasing
the volume and effectiveness of European research is to succeed.
The on-going process
Since January, the consultation on the European Research Area, has given many results,
both at the governmental level and at the scientific and economic level.
The European Council’s special meeting on 23-24 March 2000 at Lisbon
The European Council held a special meeting on 23-24 March 2000 in Lisbon to agree a
new strategic goal for the Union in order to strengthen employment, economic reform and
social cohesion as part of a knowledge-based economy. The official conclusions on the
European Research Area is reproduced here:
Establishing a European Area of Research and Innovation
Given the significant role played by research and development
in generating economic growth, employment and social cohesion, the Union must work towards
the objectives set out in the Commission's communication "Towards a European Research
Area". Research activities at national and Union level must be better integrated
and co-ordinated to make them as efficient and innovative as possible, and to ensure
that Europe offers attractive prospects to its best brains. The instruments under the
Treaty and all other appropriate means, including voluntary arrangements, must be fully
exploited to achieve this objective in a flexible, decentralised and non-bureaucratic
manner. At the same time, innovation and ideas must be adequately rewarded within the new
knowledge-based economy, particularly through patent protection.
- The European Council asks the Council and the Commission, together with the Member
States where appropriate, to take the necessary steps as part of the establishment of a
European Research Area to:
- develop appropriate mechanisms for networking national and joint research programmes on
a voluntary basis around freely chosen objectives, in order to take greater advantage of
the concerted resources devoted to R&D in the Member States, and ensure regular
reporting to the Council on the progress achieved; to map by 2001 research and
development excellence in all Member States in order to foster the dissemination of
excellence;
- improve the environment for private research investment, R&D partnerships and
high technology start-ups, by using tax policies, venture capital and EIB support;
- encourage the development of an open method of co-ordination for benchmarking national
research and development policies and identify, by June 2000, indicators for assessing
performance in different fields, in particular with regard to the development of human
resources; introduce by June 2001 a European innovation scoreboard;
- facilitate the creation by the end of 2001 of a very high-speed
trans-european network
for electronic scientific communications, with EIB support, linking research institutions
and universities, as well as scientific libraries, scientific centres and, progressively,
schools;
- take steps to remove obstacles to the mobility of researchers in Europe by 2002 and to
attract and retain high-quality research talent in Europe;
- ensure that a Community patent is available by the end of 2001, including the utility
model, so that Community-wide patent protection in the Union is as simple and inexpensive
to obtain and as comprehensive in its scope as the protection granted by key competitors.
Public contributions to the debate
During the first weeks following the Communication, there were many public
contributions to the debate, and a special document was issued by the commission, summing
up the contributions, organising them according to the action lines indicated in the
Communication and submitting commentary from the Commission. The document is annexed to
this paper.
After the informal council, the Commissioner
Busquin, proposed to focus the debate
around five questions, and asked for public contributions:
- Mr. Busquin's communication argues that national public research efforts are too
"compartmentalised" between Member States, lacking coherence and integration. Is
this true? Do you have you personal experience of such compartmentalisation? Do you
believe it is time for Europe to have a true European research policy?
- Why do European firms spend so much less on R&D than US firms? What can public
authorities do to stimulate private R&D investments?
- The communication on a European Research Area highlights the lack of mobility for
researchers in Europe. Have you experienced problems of moving between countries in the
European Union as a researcher? What are the main obstacles to the mobility of
researchers?
- How can we measure success in R&D? What are indicators of a successful R&D
policy?
- Should public R&D money be concentrated on areas which the private sector will not
cover, for example fundamental research, or should public R&D spending be oriented
towards obtaining clear results?
ECCE’ position paper
I feel that we should not restrain our position paper to the 5 questions and that it
would be well advised to send also some commentaries related to the first debate. I have
been impressed by the points developed by the European chemistry (see the paper on the
public contribution to the debate). We should defend the position of our industry as
firmly as they did.
We will discuss these points in Rome and we will decide what fits better for the paper.
| Guy BENATTAR |
| President |
| ECCE Task-Force Research and Development |
|
Paris, Thursday, April 20,
2000
|
Annexes:
Mr Thorn’s analysis
Mr Antonio Adao da Fonseca’s paper
The public contributions to the debate.
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