6. September 2007 11:43
A comprehensive ERA needs full involvement of non-governmental stakeholders, ESF & EUROHORCs comment to EC’s Green Paper
The European Commission needs to engage and focus more on the national research funding and performing organisations, the private sector, and the non-European research systems for the development of the European Research Area (ERA) if it is serious about establishing a comprehensive ERA, according to the Heads of European Research Councils (EUROHORCs) and the European Science Foundations (ESF).
The joint response came after a request by the EU Science and Research Commissioner Janez Potočnik to seek public comment and recommendation for the Green Paper on the ERA.
“The Commission's analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of the European Research System (ERS) concentrates too much on the perspective of the Commission’s role and on that of governments and intergovernmental structures,” commented Dr. John Marks, Chief Executive of the ESF. “The analysis presented in the Green Paper is a good start but ignores important partners and misses promising opportunities considering that more than 90 percent of public R&D funding occurs at national level. EUROHORCs and ESF, together with other organisations, should continue to take an important part in the creation of the ERA.”
To promote competition and increase quality, EUROHORCs and ESF are suggesting that the EU should inject more resources into basic research through programmes such as the European Research Council (ERC), a move to reduce EU’s bureaucracy, and to put pressure on its member states to remove the still abundant barriers to the mobility of researchers.
“The national players including research funders and research performers on the one hand and governments, on the other, have to implement a common strategy to increase their efforts to remove the institutional barriers such as the shortage of human and monetary resources, to adopt common peer review systems, to implement jointly funded schemes and ease the sharing of research infrastructure” commented Pär Omling, President of EUROHORCs.
Agreeing that unnecessary fragmentation should be avoided EUROHORCs and ESF have recognised that the diversity which underlies fragmentation could also result in a positive impact when it leads to a differentiated research landscape, provided the landscape is transparent and there is good communication. The diversity could certainly encourage competition, enable cooperation and consequently raise quality.
ESF and EUROHORCS have raised 11 points of activities and measures:
• Develop a concerted vision for steering scientific research in Europe through coordinated foresight exercises
• Establish more bottom up researcher-driven programmes based on the EUROCORES
• Introduce a new funding mechanism for linking the Research Performing Organisations under the EU Research Framework
• Developing cooperation schemes beyond the borders of the ERA towards a global research area GLOREA
• Developing programs for early stage researchers
• Pursuing closer collaboration on PhD training programmes
• Create more joint public-private funding partnership sources.
• Developing closer interactions with the universities
• Developing the Money follows researcher and Money follows cooperation schemes.
• Enable scientists in EU countries to apply to the funding agencies in any EU country
• Establish or extend medium-sized infrastructures
“The main aim behind such a endeavor must be to fund excellent scientific projects in a transparent and fair manner – only with this base will it be possible to establish a successful and competitive European Research Area,” added Marks. “It is essential to involve all stakeholders of science and science strategy in Europe, thereby also including the private sector in its function of funding and executing research, contributing more than half to the total expenses of R&D in Europe.”
Click here to view the full comment from The Commission’s Green Paper on the Future of the ERA: Comments of EUROHORCs and ESF on the Green Paper
Media contact:
- Dr. Sören DürrE-Mail
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