Work together and spend more: the way forward for research

Date: 18/11/04

Two MEPs outline their opinions on how to stop the 'brain drain' from the EU to America

The solution for Europe lies in a common European policy on research and development, says Miloslav Ransdorf

Zbynek Zeman, a Czech historian living in the UK, wrote a book about the post-war history of central and eastern Europe. He saw a Hegelian trick of history in the Soviet-fashioned socialism. The real meaning of the policy of these regimes was to close the gap between western and eastern Europe.

In Czechoslovakia and East Germany, alternative approaches were sacrificed to the need for capital accumulation to bridge the backwardness of the countries of the Soviet bloc. Two traditionally industrial countries, their main exports were machinery and consumption goods.

During the Cold War they were forced to move to heavy industry which led to high inflation and the consequence was currency reform and social unrest.

The concept of the cheap labour force was counterbalanced by different social grades and by subsidies. Salaries of people working in science, research and education were low, which led to frustration and the emigration of many qualified scientists and researchers. Czechoslovakia's experience shows that the capacity of the research and development (R&D) sector was greater than the capacity of the rigidly managed industry to absorb their results. The Czechoslovak chemical industry, for instance, was unable to put many inventions into practice.

Some of them found their practical implementation in the western world.

Despite this, Czechoslovakia produced approximately 1% of new scientific information in the world (in the 1980s, it was proportionately above its share of the world population), covering the wide scope of industrial branches (Czechoslovakia had 70% coverage of sectors of industry).

Apart from a bureaucratic style of management, the main obstacle to progress was the low pay for people in R&D. Investment in industry and research was sufficient; the R&D sector consumed approximately 2.2-2.5% of gross domestic product (GDP) in the 1980s, but the structure had to be changed. At the Institute for Forecasting of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences, where I worked, we prepared the concept of economic and social reforms. Part of this was the shift in the concept of labour towards a relatively more expensive labour force in order to enhance motivation and change lifestyles. It was also to structure the market in a better way and focus on the need to increase consumption of the population and their lifestyle expectations. We wanted to put investment into the R&D sector.

Unfortunately, the strategy prevailing after political changes in the transforming countries was the shock therapy scenario, presented for the first time by Lipton and Sachs, in January 1990, in an article in The Economist entitled 'What Is To Be Done?' This approach led these countries in the opposite way, basing the economy on an even cheaper labour force, which destroyed even advanced branches of the economy.

The consequences of this strategy were underfinancing, the destruction of the financial and commercial background of Czech machinery producers and the weakening of the Academy of Sciences.

The chance to combine the resources of western Europe and the accession countries in an active way has been lost. The percentage of investment in R&D (after some improvement) is now around 0.7% of GDP compared with three times that amount before the changes.

This development has also had a negative impact on western Europe.

Of course EU countries have had problems with the institutional framework, with the scattered structure of projects and priorities, but the brain drain and the other results of the chosen strategy in the transforming countries have sharpened the difficulties now occurring in western Europe.

The solution can only be found in a common European policy on research and development based on a reshaped Lisbon Strategy.

Commissioner Janez Potocnik wants to re-tailor the Lisbon Strategy for today's needs. He can rely on us in this good intention.

• Czech MEP Miloslav Ransdorf is vice-president of the Confederal Group of the European United Left-Nordic Green Left and a member of the Parliament's committee on industry, foreign trade, research and energy.

It is time for boldness and time to benefit from the possibilities our scientists can provide, argues Reino Paasilinna

A STUDENT of computer sciences in the Helsinki University of Technology (HUT) is frustrated by the way his computer is frequently jammed and at other times just does not provide the effectiveness he expects. So, in his free time, he decides to write an operating system that could take more out of the driver and memory space.

He announces his software in a discussion group on the internet and, by the time he is a lecturer in his university, he is known worldwide.

At present, Linus Thorvalds works for a US company in Silicon Valley and it is another US company that has made the best commercialization of the Linux operating system that was named after him.

The story is well known and, unfortunately, not an exceptional case. Today, Europe allegedly supports the American economy with more than 400,000 postgraduate students. This trend continues in all fields of academia and knowledge, be it basic research, applied science or R&D.

It is a commonly held belief that innovations are something that can only be developed inside companies and that policymakers would be better off keeping their hands out of this field since they can only hinder the imaginative processes with red tape and over-regulation.

I argue that this is not the case. In fact, the continuing success of top American universities - and the impetus they give to American companies - provides evidence of just the opposite: the care and resources poured into excellent minds to provide them with freedom of work is paid back handsomely.

So what can a European policymaker do, or at least dream of doing, to stop the brain drain that has for most of the 20th century emptied our universities, laboratories and companies of the potential essential in our quest to fulfil our aims to become the most competitive knowledge- based economy in the world?

First, we need to foster the excellence that exists in our universities and companies. Wherever there are proper centres of excellence, working conditions as well as the salaries paid to their personnel need to be guaranteed. It is another unfortunate misconception that true scientists only live on their imagination and nothing else.

We should actively promote the formation of new centres of excellence. In the IT age, these need not be confined inside the same walls or indeed the same country, hence the need for proper European initiatives. These centres would be monitored by peer review from the most respected experts in any given field.

Apart from all these individual centres we urgently need a proper European Research Centre (ERC) - an academy where different fields of research are brought together, where existing projects are monitored, new ones hatched and networks of academics are created.

The ERC should have the powers to allocate resources independently. We must rely on peer review within fields of study. Whenever completely new areas of research emerge, we must courageously be prepared to take risks and finance only potential future successes.

The ERC must gather the brightest European brains: a European academy of sciences.

And why should there not be a pan-European television channel on which top lecturers can explain their research to students and interested members of the general public alike?

We need to be bold and insist that short-term macro-economic constraints do not prevent Europe from benefiting from the possibilities our researchers can provide. The first objective must, of course, be to reach the target of 3% GDP investment in research. Those member states that have done so are the ones that appear high on rankings in competitiveness.

Even that is not enough, but it is a first step that must be taken without delay, especially as we are about to adopt the EU's 7th Research Framework Programme next Spring.

• Finnish MEP Reino Paasilinna is coordinator of the Socialists on the Parliament's committee on industry, foreign trade, research and energy.

Two MEPs outline their opinions on how to stop the 'brain drain' from the EU to America. The solution for Europe lies in a common European policy on research and development, says Miloslav Ransdorf, who is Vice-President of the Confederal Group of the European United Left-Nordic Green Left and a Member of the European Parliament's Committee on Industry, Foreign Trade, Research and Energy. It is time for boldness and time to benefit from the possibilities our scientists can provide, argues Finnish MEP Reino Paasilinna, who is coordinator of the Socialists on the Parliament's Committee on Industry, Foreign Trade, Research and Energy.