European Research Area
Dieser Artikel in Deutsch
Setting up a European Research Council is one of the priorities in the 7th Research Framework Programme of the European Union (EU), which is scheduled to commence in 2007. The new funding organisation's mission will be to extend the "frontiers of knowledge", i.e. to support pure research.
"If Albert Einstein were alive today, the European Commission would not fund any of his research," says Antonia Mochan, the European Commission's Press Officer for Science and Research in Brussels. "In order for us to provide funding, research projects still have to be organised as international collaborative schemes at the moment. However, the planned European Research Council could also support research ventures run by individual teams."
The aim of the institution is to boost the international competitiveness of European research. The members of the Research Council, an international committee of academics, are to be independent of any provisions made by the European Commission when taking decisions on research projects worthy of funding.
| 
