News & Views item - February 2010

 

 

Ireland's Máire Geoghegan-Quinn is the Newly Designated European Commissioner for Research, Innovation and Science. (February 10, 2010)

An Irish politician until , Máire Geoghegan-Quinn, served as Minister for Justice from 1993–1994 and acting Minister for Equality and Law Reform from Nov. 1994–Dec. 1994. In November 2009 she was nominated to become Ireland's first female  European Commissioner and she has now succeeded Janez Potočnik as European Commissioner for Research, Innovation and Science despite having no scientific background.

 

While Ms Geofhegan-Quinn has yet to detail her agenda, at her confirmation hearing last month she she told MEPs that she is a woman of action: "This is a politician who is in charge of doing things, who wants results and who wants delivery; I won't be a mouse, I won't be quiet."

 

As NatureNews' Allison Abbott points out one of her first duties will be to: "preside over the design of the Eighth Framework Programme of Research (FP8), due to launch in 2014. The framework programmes are the EU's main science-funding mechanism, and FP8 is expected to spend €50 billion–100 billion (US$68 billion–137 billion) over seven years. European researchers flock to the framework programmes, but are appalled by their convoluted bureaucracy. Scientists from other countries, including the United States, can also win funding from some areas of the programmes... She also becomes Europe's innovation tsar, coordinating with all research programmes in other directorates such as energy, environment and agriculture."

 

Ms Geoghegan-Quinn has already stated that she wants to create a less bureaucratic framework that supports European Union goals, including the creation of a European Research Area.

 

What is not at all clear is just how much ability the new commissioner will have to steer the European parliamentary ship in directions she deems appropriate.