Surprises in European science policy

Abstract

I recently participated in a daring experiment—I was a member of the selection committee for the European Commission's functional genomics projects under the 5th Framework Programme. And my experience of this experiment was quite surprising for two reasons. The first was that the EC has obviously listened to scientists’ opinions and the second was that they have shown the ability to change the selection process of their research projects in an unprecedented way. Most of the scientific community are resigned to the fact that Brussels' system of granting funding for research projects is crucially flawed. Clearly, the facts that the anonymous selection panels are appointed in a non‐transparent manner, that their work is time restricted, that access to relevant documents—when sequestered in an office in Brussels—and the clarification of some assertions in the proposal with an expert colleague is not possible, feeds the popular belief that decision making at the EC is not being done in an optimal way. And those who presented this litany of concerns to the Commission seemed to make no progress; instead, those responsible for the spending of EU money still defended the system. …