EU-Research Funding: Not just a sprinkling anymore
At the moment the EU is supporting 14,000 research projects
Dieser Artikel in Deutsch
In the years 2003 to 2006, the European Commission will be making funds of 17.5 billion EUR available. This is the amount specified in the currently discussed proposal to the EU's Sixth Framework Programme. The goal of this Framework Programme is to propel Europe's researchers into the vanguard of progress by the end of this century. EU Commissioner for research Philippe Busquin states confidently: "We must promote science and research much more than we have in the past. Europe has an immense need for talented young scholars in this area."
Recently a survey of the EU's Statistical Office showed that EU countries lack about 50,000 postgraduates every year. The EU's Sixth Framework Programme therefore calls for the construction of Centers of Excellence that will provide young researchers with ideal working conditions - of course the ulterior motive being the prevention of brain drain to the United States.
Contrary to the EU's current Fifth Framework Programme, the promotion of research will be more structured: funds will not be distributed following the watering can principle. Instead, funds will be granted first to major research projects with several cooperating partners. "The previous programme only had vague guidelines for projects," Busquin says, "for that reason we now want to include more integrative elements promoting cooperation between industry, universities, start-ups and research centers." Project management will be transferred from the European Commission to the funded institutions; this would mean that smaller groups of researchers and research institutions could continue to receive funding by cooperating with other scientists and scholars. The EU's Sixth Framework Programme also supports certain thematic areas of research such as the life sciences, industrial technologies, information technology/multimedia and energy/environment.
Additionally, the new programme includes improvements for Marie Curie Fellows: more follow-up scholarships and grants for returning scholars will be offered than currently. Unfortunately, German research institutions are not very popular with recipients of Marie Curie Scholarships, as an analysis of the last funding years shows: according to the study, only every tenth fellow decides to go to Germany and about as many decide to work in the much smaller Netherlands. With the increase in funding for East European institutions, however, experts expect a rise in demands for research scholarships at German institutions, since the number of German-speaking researchers in Eastern Europe is said to be much higher than in the other EU-countries.
Armin Himmelrath
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