Why Europe should maintain science spending

Over the years, the European Commission’s Framework programmes for scientific research have helped define European science. They have enabled new projects to get off the ground at the continental level and beyond, and they have created a generation of young researchers for whom working in international teams comes naturally. Without a doubt, this has contributed greatly to European competitiveness and to sustaining the impact of European research on the world stage. The latest incarnation of the EU’s science funding programme, Horizon 2020, is the best yet. Its ambition is high, its structures are more streamlined and its impact on European science and competitiveness is potentially transformative. Which is why the Commission’s decision to divert €2.7 billion to an alternative investment plan for Europe is short sighted.

The Commission’s aim is to stimulate European economies, and that is laudable. Yet the best way for public sector finance at this level to achieve that ambition is through funding science and scientists: the ultimate drivers of innovation. Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker argues that the money diverted from Horizon 2020 to his new investment plan will benefit European science, which begs the question of why it’s being transferred in the first place. Time may prove Mr Juncker to be right, but in the meantime science will have to fight for previously ring-fenced funds, and I doubt the result will benefit European science as much as keeping Horizon 2020 intact.

The investment plan is earmarked to cover everything from transport infrastructure to education and science. It’s a mystery to me why funds should be removed from Europe’s dedicated education and science programmes to fund these activities through a different route. This approach undermines the progress towards efficiency and transparency of funding that have been made in Horizon 2020. Nevertheless, the transfer from Horizon 2020 to the investment plan seems to be a done deal, and it is incumbent on European scientists to ensure that Mr Juncker’s promise of science and education funding through the investment plan is fulfilled.

€2.7 billion is a large sum of money, but the true nature of Mr Juncker’s plan only becomes clear when you take a look at the bigger picture. With the Horizon 2020 programme valued at €70 billion over seven years, this sum corresponds to a reduction of about 4%: substantial by any measure. As a contribution to the €21 billion Mr Juncker plans to make available through his investment plan, it is clearly significant. However this needs to be set against the size of the economy to which it is to be applied. Conservative estimates valued Europe’s economy at €12 trillion in 2014. In other words, the funds taken from Horizon 2020 amount to a mere 0.02% of the total for a single year. How much impact can that realistically have? Little, I suspect, and it would be far better to leave the money earmarked for science in an economic ecosystem where it can make a meaningful difference.

Over the years, the EU’s Framework programmes have built many bridges between the scientific communities of Europe. My advice today to Mr Juncker is: don’t spend the money on physical bridges. Invest instead on sustaining the intellectual bridges that Europe has painstakingly put in place over the years through the Framework programmes. That is the way to European cohesion, competitiveness and prosperity.

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Author: Rolf Heuer is the Director-General of the European Organization for Nuclear Research.

Image: Molecular Genetics Technical Specialist Jaime Wendt (R) and Mike Tschannen work in the Human and Molecular Genetics Center Sequencing Core at the Medical College of Wisconsin in Milwaukee May 9, 2014. REUTERS/Jim Young.