European Research Council Moves a Step Closer to Realisation. (October 28, 2005)

    During its first meeting held on October 18 - 19 the decision was taken by the  the Scientific Council of the European Research Council that the ERC is to be headed by scientist rather than a bureaucrat.

 The ERC, due to start operating in 2007, will be the first Europe-wide basic-research agency, and is designed in part to reduce the bureaucratic burden associated with the European Union's Framework research programme.
 

Nature reports that "researchers at the meeting also confirmed that the ERC is to fund basic research across all academic fields, and endorsed plans for an executive agency, under the aegis of the European Commission, to implement all ERC activities."

Now the Prime Minister of Great Britain and the French President, meeting at the current summit of the European Union have pledged significant support for EU-wide research funding.

Tony Blair, current president of the EU said:

We need both to make sure that more of the European budget is spent on those priority areas if those are the future areas for the European economy, and we also need to co-ordinate better how we do the work in these areas. We propose specifically a European Research Council that is the equivalent of the American National Science Foundation, that will support the funding of research and development projects and gives us the chance in Europe to be forming the world beating companies in the technologies of the future.

    Our proposal is that we task the Commission specifically on coming back and reporting to the European Council next year on the challenge facing European universities, how we compete with the United States, how we get more public-private partnership into sustaining them [...]

While French President Jacques Chirac told the EU summit:

[Europe] must increase innovation and research to support tomorrow’s jobs. Germany and France have launched major ­programmes in the most promising ­sectors. I suggest we extend this approach throughout Europe. Such efforts require further funding. France’s proposal is to mobilise the European Investment Bank to double community research capabilities. Let us set up with the bank an instrument endowed with €10bn which, by leveraging public and private co-funding, will generate an additional €30bn in research and innovation projects up to 2013.

It remains to be seen whether or not deeds will match the rhetoric, but at least the targets are being enunciated; a practice disparaged by Australia's current Prime Minister, John Howard.