environment that is urgently needed toattract foreign researchers (see Nature 419,108– 109; 2002).

The Lisbon declaration of March 2000 setthe political goal of developing the EU into“the most competitive knowledge-basedeconomy in the world by 2010”. At a meetingin Barcelona, also in March 2000, the EUCouncil agreed to increase investments inresearch and development (R&D) across theEU from today’s 2% of gross domestic prod-

uct to 3% by 2010. These initiatives are notmeant to become yet another manifestationof politicians’ rhetoric. It is time for us in thescientific community to respond seriously tothe challenges that they provide.

An immediate challengeThe recently completed first round of EUbenchmarking exercises clearly demon-strates that there is neither time nor room forcomplacency. The EU is lagging behind theUnited States not only in R&D expenditureand overall output, but also on such widelyaccepted indicators of scientific and techno-logical productivity as publications perinhabitant and citations per scientific publi-cation (see Figure, left), as well as on severalpatent indicators. Even more striking are thehuge differences in scientific and technologi-cal productivity between the EU memberstates, with the Nordic countries clearly taking the lead — as they did in the recentProgramme for International StudentAssessment (PISA) study of schoolchildren’smathematics and literacy in 32 countriesaround the world (see www.pisa.oecd.org).Some large countries, such as Germany,achieved only slightly above-average results,which is disappointing.

Publications and patents are intermediateoutputs of research, so they are only a partialmeasure of the achievement of broader goalsin the advance of knowledge. Nevertheless,they can serve as starting points for taking a

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NATURE | VOL 419 | 19 SEPTEMBER 2002 | www.nature.com/nature 249

Wilhelm Krull

Europe is going through rapid changes, andit lacks something it urgently needs in almostall areas of research policy-making: a strongEurope-wide voice for science and scholar-ship. Even more pressing for the EuropeanUnion (EU) is the lack of a central, finan-cially powerful funding institution, able tomake decisions based on qualitative judge-ments by the best researchers worldwide.

Apart from a few research areas such asastrophysics, space research, nuclear physicsand, to a limited extent, molecular biology,Europe suffers from an almost total lack oftransnational support of basic and strategicresearch. European research needs institu-tional reforms at all levels to keep pace with the changes inherent in becoming aknowledge-based economy. It is increasinglydesirable, even urgent, to establish pan-European funding structures that can createboth a cooperative climate for the develop-ment of new ideas, and an institutional envi-ronment that will encourage competitionamong Europe’s best researchers to producemore cutting-edge results.

Catalytic activityIn this wider context, a new Europeanresearch council could be a spearhead ofinstitutional reform, a catalyst of new inter-and transdisciplinary research activities,a creator of new transnational fundingopportunities for young researchers and, lastbut not least, a provider of the research-friendly administrative and organizational

A fresh start for European scienceThe scientific community must take up the challenges set by EU objectives.

Lagging behind: Europe’s citation rate remains below that of the United States.

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closer look at the configuration of researchsystems and innovation systems. Areas ofparticular concern in Europe include the distribution of excellence among researchinstitutions, the infrastructure and otherbase conditions, and funding opportunitiesfor the most talented researchers.We need todevelop attractive career structures whichenable those researchers to pursue their ownideas much earlier and more independentlythan in most current systems. The continualflow of highly qualified researchers betweencountries and between the public and privatesectors also requires more flexibility and permeability. Qualifications gained innational institutions must be valid through-out Europe.

In particular, the publicly financed uni-versities, research institutes and fundingbodies in Europe have an important role inproviding the next generation of researchers.Our society’s well-being depends on thequality of these people’s talents and theirability to meet the challenges of the future.Healthy universities provide the basis for aglobally competitive R&D workforce. But itis only in the framework of internationalresearch communities that a university system, research organization or fundinginstitution can attain the highest standardsof achievement.

Open approachAlthough research organizations have begunto invite foreign independent experts to takepart in their assessment exercises, mostresearch councils are still overwhelminglynationally oriented when it comes to peerreview of proposals. They rely almost com-pletely on the ability of colleagues in thesame disciplines at institutions in their owncountries to select high-quality projects forsupport. Even if one believes that this systemworks well for most subjects, it is easy toidentify areas where mediocre researchersendorse each other and nepotism is rife.These self-congratulatory circles need to bebroken, by denationalizing grant-makingand peer review throughout Europe.

Compensating for weaknesses in researchtraining schemes and overcoming deficien-cies in national councils’ assessment pro-cesses are but two of the many pressing reasons for rethinking European researchfunding structures. There are other equallyimportant reasons for establishing a research council at the European level (see Box).

Of course, these broadly defined areas ofactivity need to be specified in more detail,butthey are a first set of indications of fundingneeds and priorities that are not adequatelycovered by national research councils or agen-cies, nor by the European Commission and itsmultifaceted (though mainly precompetitive)industry-oriented R&D programmes. Thesedevelopments cannot just be added to existingfunding structures — they require different

ways of strategic think-ing and of interactingwithin the disciplineconcerned and morewidely.They also need amore research-friendly,less bureaucratic butwell-organized and rig-orous selection process,which cannot obviouslybe grafted onto anyexisting mechanism.

Several existing pan-European researchorganizations, such as the European Molec-ular Biology Organization (EMBO) or theEuropean Science Foundation (ESF), couldprovide some of the functions listed in theBox. But none seems willing or able to copewith the huge challenges of becoming themain funder of scientific and scholarly excel-lence in Europe.

To put it another way, at the Europeanlevel we have too many weak organizations.To develop them into well-equipped, finan-cially powerful institutions with executiveauthority may not be impossible. Butbecause of their current stakeholders’ limitedperspectives, reform could be a cumbersome process with meagre results. It may suffice to mention one such attempt in theearly to mid-1990s: the reappraisal of the

ESF’s mission. Despite clearly identifiedneeds, a lot of effort and long debates,the result is at best an enlarged pan-Euro-pean mission statement for the ESF. Becauseneither its member organizations nor theEuropean Commission gave it enough extrafunds, the ESF has more or less remainedwhat it always was for heads of nationalresearch councils: a little item at the bottomof the agenda .

To secure a framework of autonomousdecision-making for a new funding bodywill not be straightforward. It will take a lotof courage and openness by the heads of theprimarily nationally oriented research orga-nizations, as well as by the EU memberstates’ governments, and possibly alsobeyond the EU’s current borders. They willneed to grant the utmost degree of freedomand, at the same time, a great deal of moneyto an institution that will have to prove that it can live up to its aspirations. But it is certainly worth the effort, if we Europeans

want to get a little closer tobecoming the world’s mostcompetitive knowledge-based economy by 2010.

Given the current need to reconfigure the politicalarchitecture of the EU,there is now a window ofopportunity for rethinkingand realigning our researchfunding structures. This willenable us to move furtheraway from the old EEC

approach, which was forced by legal con-straints to demand an industry-orientedjustification for short- to medium-termR&D programmes at the European level,while at the same time paying tribute to ‘justeretour’ — the principle that researchers inany country receive roughly the same per-centage of funds as their government con-tributed to the pot.

This has led us into the rather strange situation where regionally oriented innova-tion policies are dealt with at the Europeanlevel,while genuinely internationally orient-ed basic and strategic research activities findonly very limited support beyond nationalborders. It is time for a change. Now thattoday’s politicians seem to understand thenecessity of taking a long-term view ofcapacity building in science and scholarship,it may no longer be a frustrating, Sisyphus-like exercise to strive for a thorough restruc-turing of research funding at the Europeanlevel. Let’s give the bold vision for a Euro-pean research council a chance! ■

Wilhelm Krull is the secretary general of theVolkswagen Foundation(www.volkswagenstiftung. de), Germany’s largestprivate funder of higher education and research,at Kastanienallee 35, 30519 Hannover, Germany.He is a founding member of Euroscience(www.euroscience.org).

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Council activityPossible functions of a European research council:☛ Create medium- to large-scale facilities beyondthe scope of one country (for example, clustering ofimaging techniques, establishing central animalrepositories), and make better use of existing large facilities.☛ Set priorities in transdisciplinary research andprovide incentives for picking up new areas ofinnovative science and scholarship.☛ Add a clear European dimension to thecompetition for some of the most prestigious grants and awards.☛ Establish leading-edge collaborative centres ofappropriate size in basic and strategic researchareas that call for integrative approaches fromdifferent disciplines.☛ Offer additional funding opportunities and newcareer structures for young postdoctoralresearchers, and thus enable them to pursue theirown ideas in an internationally supported, highlystimulating environment.

Qualificationsgained in national

institutions need to be valid throughoutEurope.

© 2002 Nature Publishing Group