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EU white paper urges competitive spirit in research
By Wai Lang Chu, 18-Feb-2008
Related topics: Regulatory & Safety
A leading medical research council has called for increased funding within the European medical research community to maintain high standards and attract and retain the brightest young researchers.
The call is the result of a study looking into the state of medical research within Europe compared to the US. The study found US researchers enjoy increased funding as well as an environment that is more attractive for R&D investment and more supportive of pharmaceutical innovation.
The European Medical Research Councils (EMRC) has had one eye on the 'brain drain' phenomenon for some time. The term refers to an emigration of trained and talented individuals to other nations, mainly due to a lack of opportunity or financial incentives. Many agree that the mass exodus has allowed Europe to fall behind in research standards.
The Council's White paper, 'Present Status and Future Strategy for Medical Research in Europe,' was debated at a meeting last month in Frankfurt, Germany. It called for a doubling of funds over the next ten years to ensure health and welfare for Europe's citizens.
In addition the paper called for the nurturing of a thriving European medical research industry with a greater collaboration between European institutions in medical research and improved career paths for medical scientists.
The emphasis on promising young scientists was of paramount concern to the EMRC, who are eager to keep graduate researchers within Europe after losing out to the US' incentives and facilities for trained scientists.
The White paper's investigation into funding showed that the USA spent significantly more on medical research than Europe. Relative to GDP (gross domestic product) the USA non-market sector spending on biomedical research and development in 2004 was between 0.37 and 0.40 per cent compared with 0.17 per cent for the original 15 EU countries (EU15) in the same year.
The paper showed that if all EU countries were used for comparison the difference was even more marked with the US spending more than twice as much as Europe relative to GDP, and almost three times as much when measured relative to the size of the respective populations.
"The total number of citations to US publications between 1996 and 2003 greatly exceeded the number of citations to EU15 publications during the same period," said the study.
It also discovered that the share of the world's citations to biomedical publications remained about 50 per cent for the USA and 40 per cent for the EU15 in the study period.
"This may be partially due to the positive English language bias in citation databases, but may also be due to a quality difference in favour of the USA," the study claimed.
Medical Research has found its way higher and higher on the European and national political agendas as governments are increasingly seeing the benefits of a healthy scientific research base in terms of investment, opportunity and economic growth.
Dr Janez Potonik, Commissioner of Research and Science at the European Commission said: "What we need and what we want is an attractive Europe, with exciting research opportunities in the scientific fields of the future, with the human resources and capacities optimised to match our ambitions; with a society that is aware and supportive of research."
Indeed, many Heads of State have come out and voiced their support for a more competitive research environment. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown is quoted in Science 6th July 2007 as saying: "The government's long-term vision is to make Britain one of the best places in the world for science, research and innovation."
One of the first acts the new French President, Nicolas Sarkozy, was to create a new ministry whose responsibility includes both research and higher education. In Germany, under the leadership of Bundeskanzlerin Dr.Angela Merkel, herself a scientist, the 'Excellence Initiative' has already been underway for two years.
A copy of the White paper: 'Present Status and Future Strategy for Medical Research in Europe,' can be found on the EMRC website here .
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