European Research Area Board: A New Governance Model for Arms-length Agencies to Deliver Research and Innovation is Essential... (October 7, 2009)

In a report presented to the European Commission today, the European Research Area Board (ERAB), which advises the commission, says: "A new governance model for arms-length agencies to deliver research and innovation in Europe is essential for our global position."

In response to the report the EC issued a statement saying that Europe must increase funds for research and eliminate nationalistic reflexes that have turned the continent from science leader to laggard. The European Research and Development Commissioner, Janez Potocnik, said that the report sets out a "clear vision". It advocates that responsibility for managing and allocating funding for European research should be devolved from the European Commission to independent agencies, including the European Research Council (ERC). Currently the ERC allocates €7.5 billion (A$12.4 billion) out of the €50-billion pot for research in the European Union's (EU's) Seventh Framework Programme, which began in 2007 and runs until 2013.

"A new governance model for arms-length agencies to deliver research and innovation in Europe is essential for our global position." John Wood, ERAB's chair, told Nature: "We need a radical rethink about how research is funded in Europe."

In his view a model based on independent agencies would allow "greater flexibility" in the research that is funded, including new ideas that "don't fit" into the Framework programme.

The ERAB's report says bluntly that by 2030, half of the EU's funds for research should go towards frontier research and  in a recommendation that will be seen by many as heretical it suggests that funds from the EU budget used for agricultural subsidies could be redirected towards research so that its share triples to 12%.

And Nature's Natasha Gilbert reports the ERAB recommends: "The remaining half of the EU budget for research should fund directed programmes that focus on a small number of "grand challenges", such as climate change, energy supply and ageing societies. This contrasts with funding for the Framework programme, in which money is spread over a large number of research areas that have changed little since the first programme started in 1984."

The report also is strongly in favour of creating the post of European Chief Scientist recommended recently by José Manuel Barroso, president of the European Commission, and the ERAB hopes to present concrete plans on his/her role for discussion at a meeting next May.

While Janez Potočnik has welcomed the report and says: "Its recommendations, some of which have already found their way into President Barroso's political guidelines for the next Commission, it will stimulate new discussions on how to address the challenges facing European research and usher in a new 'Renaissance'," it remains to be seen what real movement will be accomplished. As the US Secretary of Energy, Steven Chu, has pointed out, when contending with bureaucracy, contrary to Newton's First Law to keep a initiative moving you've gotta keep pushing.