Research as subsidy

Returning from the big Lisbon conference on the European Research Area, my colleague Laura Hood brought an intriguing snippet back from Brian Ager, director general of big pharma's trade association, the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations.

Ager was understandably unhappy about the long delays in reaching a deal between pharma firms, the Commission and member states over the Innovative Medicines Initiative. The IMI is supposed to pool public and private funds in a new, industry-led organisation to fund R&D. It's one of a series of Joint Technology Initiatives that sound nice in principle but which are bogged down in arguments over the exact terms of the deal - eg who should own the IP on resulting discoveries? This, of course, is precisely the kind of substantive issue that has already killed Plan A for the EU's Galileo satellite navigation system. So, while Ager's frustration is understandable, so is the slow progress. The EU is discovering that there ain't no deal until there's a deal.

But the thing that intrigued me was Ager's warning that, in response to the IMI, the US is already preparing its own initiative, and that this could siphon away potential investors.

Away from civil aviation, where it's been entrenched for decades, this is the first time I've seen such open competition between governments on hi-tech projects. This seems to suggest that the global competition that we're getting used to for research talent is expanding into other dimensions. It revealed in a rather crude way the attempts by big firms to play governments off against each other. And it reinforces the view that public R&D funding is, in increasingly important ways, just the last subsidy allowed by the WTO.

ERA: itchy industry feet

This morning it was the turn of industry to air their views on the future of the European Research Area. Three speakers from the pharmaceutical industry, the chemical industry and Philips research all gave a similar message: industry is ready to invest in R&D in Europe and is beginning to get fed up with waiting for the political arguments to be ironed out.

As everyone suspected, they are less than entuisiastic about waiting until January for the European Parliament to finalise its views on JTIs.

 
Several people have also mentioned this year’s Nobel prize winners. It seems particularly appropriate to discussions that prizes were awarded to two European-born scientists who now work in America.

 

In today’s baffling metaphor news:

*public interest in research is, apparently, a “three legged chair”

*the ERA is a jazz band, waiting to find its rhythm.

Elvis in Lisbon

With the first day of the European Research Area conference under way here in Lisbon, two major themes seem to be emerging: breaking down bureaucracy and the wisdom of Elvis Presley.

The two may not be naturally linked but several of the day's speakers seemed to think we would do well to heed the advice of the King. Early in the day we were told that "a little less conversation a bit more action" is needed to bring the aspirations of the ERA to fruition and in the afternoon Luke Georgiou reminded us that "it's now or never" for Europe if we aim to keep up with the US and our mysterious new rival "Chindia".

However, as much as everyone seems keen to cut the red tape and take the ERA to the next phase, each new objection to the current direction seems to open a new can of worms. We want to more coordination in our research efforts but fear homogenisation. We want to compete but can't agree on whether our main competitor should be the US or each other. We want to find someone to blame for the slow progress being made on the ERA but can't decide between the commission and the member states.

One person who found no difficulty in choosing his scapegoat on this last point was Enric Banda of Euroscience. “Stop blaming the commission every time something goes wrong” he told us. Instead, we should urge the member states to take a more “mature” view of the ERA and accept that compromise is inevitable at some stage.

Despite the intricacies, the sense of urgency seems to be shared by all. Janez Potočnik warned the conference that we simply could not be having these same arguments in five year’s time and there was very little dissent amongst his audience on this point. Most seem agreed on one or two major issues such as supporting researcher mobility within Europe, attracting talent from outside the community and pushing for greater private investment in R&D (although how this last goal is to be achieved is another sore spot).

Tomorrow we hear from the French Minister for Higher Education and Research and get told not to step on her blue suede shoes.