With the first day of the European Research Area conference under
way here in Lisbon,
two major themes seem to be emerging: breaking down bureaucracy and the wisdom of
Elvis Presley.
The two may not be naturally linked but several of the day's
speakers seemed to think we would do well to heed the advice of the King. Early
in the day we were told that "a little less conversation a bit more
action" is needed to bring the aspirations of the ERA to fruition and in
the afternoon Luke Georgiou reminded us that "it's now or never" for
Europe if we aim to keep up with the US and our mysterious new rival
"Chindia".
However, as much as everyone seems keen to cut the red tape and take the ERA to
the next phase, each new objection to the current direction seems to open a new
can of worms. We want to more coordination in our research efforts but fear homogenisation.
We want to compete but can't agree on whether our main competitor should be the US
or each other. We want to find someone to blame for the slow progress being made on the ERA but can't decide
between the commission and the member states.
One person who found no difficulty in choosing his scapegoat
on this last point was Enric Banda of Euroscience. “Stop blaming the commission
every time something goes wrong” he told us. Instead, we should urge the member
states to take a more “mature” view of the ERA and accept that compromise is
inevitable at some stage.
Despite the intricacies, the sense of urgency seems to be
shared by all. Janez Potočnik warned the conference that we simply could not be
having these same arguments in five year’s time and there was very little
dissent amongst his audience on this point. Most seem agreed on one or two
major issues such as supporting researcher mobility within Europe, attracting talent from outside the community and pushing for greater private investment
in R&D (although how this last goal is to be achieved is another sore spot).
Tomorrow we hear from the French Minister for Higher
Education and Research and get told not to step on her blue suede shoes.