More support for plan to globalize EU funds

The chief executive of Britain's Medical Research Council has lent his support to a proposal to allow some researchers from the US and elsewhere to apply for funding from European Union coffers, arguing Europe could benefit from the establishment of reciprocal funding arrangements.

Colin Blakemore, whose term at the helm of the UK agency ends in September, told The Scientist he welcomed recent debate on the issue, which was sparked in late April at a meeting of the standing committee of the European Medical Research Councils (EMRC) in Stockholm.

The driving force behind the debate was Liselotte H￸jgaard, the Danish chair of the standing committee. She told The Scientist that the meeting had been positive. "There was a big interest in talking about it for the sake of fair play, and because science is global," she said. At the end of the meeting, members agreed to raise the issue with their local authorities and return with an opinion at another EMRC meeting in October.

Blakemore wasn't at the meeting, but said he thought it unlikely that European Commission (EC) funding could be opened up internationally on a purely competitive basis. "But I think that there would be some support for reciprocal funding arrangements between the EC and other countries, including the US, with restrictions on eligibility similar to those for NIH funding of non-Americans," he said in an Email.

For example, he said, funding might be limited to researchers who can offer expertise or resources that are not available within Europe, or where there is a strategic need of particular importance to European citizens. In clinical trials, Europe might benefit from gaining access to unusual patient groups or specialized diagnostics, Blakemore suggested. "Similar arguments might also apply to topics of very high strategic priority, such as more rapid development of influenza vaccines," he said.

Many of Europe's top scientists benefit from NIH funding, Blakemore said, and papers co-published by US and EU scientists tend to be most highly cited. "It is timely, then, for the EMRC to have initiated a discussion about the opportunities for Europe from making some forms of European funding available to researchers elsewhere."

Still, Blakemore said he expected the idea to meet opposition. "Despite the strength of the case, I expect that there will be resistance to opening up the new European Research Council to international applications because its starting budget is so very small compared with the breadth of its remit in Europe." The ERC has 7.5 billion Euros ($9.9 billion US) to support it through its first seven years, although campaigning to increase that budget has already begun.

H￥kan Bilig, secretary general, medicine at the Swedish Research Council, was at the meeting in Stockholm. He said the EMRC had an important part to play in raising difficult issues such as this one, even though it has no power to change EU funding arrangements itself.

"I think the important thing is that we have to start discussing this because for many [countries] it is a new concept," he told The Scientist. "If we hadn't done this it might not have been started. We may not be able to end the discussions but we can be part of getting it going."

Stephen Pincock
mail@the-scientist.com

Links within this article

S. Pincock, " Some support for EU funding for US researchers," The Scientist, April 23, 2007.
http://www.the-scientist.com/news/display/53113/

S. Pincock, "MRC head to step down," The Scientist, March 8, 2007.
http://www.the-scientist.com/news/display/52932/

S. Pincock, "Could US scientists get EU funding?" The Scientist, April 19, 2007.
http://www.the-scientist.com/news/home/53079

European Medical Research Councils
http://www.esf.org/research-areas/medical-sciences/about/standing-committee.html

Liselotte H￸jgaard
http://pet.rh.dk/Liselotte/

S. Pincock, "ERC flooded by first round of grants," The Scientist, May 1, 2007.
http://www.the-scientist.com/news/display/53173/

H￥kan Billig
http://www.vr.se