Europe must do more to keep up in scientific ‘war without guns’

By Karen Carstens

Date: 13/11/03

THE EU must do more to promote advances in crucial areas of research such as genetic engineering and nanotechnology, according to one Europe's top scientists.

"There is a war without guns between North America, the Far East - China and Japan - and the EU," said E. Sylvester Vizi, president of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, which hosted the World Science Forum last weekend (8-10 November).

"The EU must create a knowledge-based society and a knowledge-based economy if it wants to keep up," he added.

Vizi said European Commission President Romano Prodi, an honorary patron of the event, had been "very, very supportive" but that the EU executive could still do more to support cutting-edge research in genetic engineering and nanotechnology.

The latter, involving the study of individual atoms and molecules as tiny as a millionth of a millimetre, can enhance precision, speed and control of, for instance, technologies in medical, military or simple day-to-day fields.

"[These areas] are very important for the future of our economies, and the EU is not focusing enough on them," Vizi said.

But Achilleas Mitsos, director-general of DG Research, cited the mammoth growth initiative launched by the EU executive last month, focusing on infrastructure and research projects, as well as releasing extra funding via the 2002-6 Sixth Framework Programme (FP6) and just-launched space action plan. Speaking in Brussels on Tuesday, Research Commissioner Philippe Busquin also insisted the growth initiative would encourage investment in nanotechnology.

Mitsos, however, admitted that the EU continued to be affected by the "brain drain". "Even if Europe is the greatest scientific publication factory in the world, it fails to convert this advantage into commercial success," he said. "Although the EU is the world's largest producer of science and technology graduates and PhDs, it employs fewer researchers than the US or Japan."

Vizi said governments were finally beginning to take science as seriously as they should, given that intellectual property rights account for 80% of an average product's value, while "only 100 years ago, it was the other way around", with labour and parts taking up the lion's share.

Goverdhan Mehta, president elect of the International Council of Science (ICSU), said that "growth of knowledge" had doubled from the years 1 AD to 1750, between 1750 and 1900 and again between 1900 and 1950. Today, knowledge is doubling "every three to four years", he added. The upshot: "More information has been generated in the last 30 years than in the previous 5,000."

Some 400 participants from around 80 countries took part in the conference, backed by the United Nations' science and culture body UNESCO and ICSU, which is intended as the first in a series of such global fora.

Harnessing the potential of the world's most innovative minds in the most ethical fashion lay at the crux of discussions on topics ranging from genomics to the Arab-Israeli conflict to sustainable development.

Hungarian Prime Minister Péter Medgyessy offered to host the forum every two years in Budapest. His country produced several leading scientists in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. As Vizi proudly put it: "The fingerprints of Hungarian science are all over the 20th century."

Report from the World Science Forum in Budapest, 8-10 November 2003.