Editorial – Horizon 2020, opportunities for research and commitment to society
In a not so remote past, scientists were a close-knit society, spending much of their time in isolated laboratories or academic institutions, sometimes referred to as ivory towers. Now however, on a par with globalization and the emergence of the information-based society, there is a growing commitment of scientists to share knowledge and opinions with society in general. And indeed it is a duty to explain how public funds are employed in the development of basic science and technology for the advancement of society.
The European Research Programme Horizon 2020 [H2020] will provide funding (to the amount of about €80 billion) for research and innovation between 2014 and 2020, and has established three strategic objectives for the funding of EU research and innovation:
- Excellent science including European Research Council [ERC] grants to top-level individual researchers working in Europe, investment in emerging technologies for opening up new fields of research, and Marie Curie Actions to develop research and innovation skills through the training, mobility and career development of young researchers.
- Industrial leadership including major investments in key industrial technologies such as Information and Communication Technologies, Industry and Societal challenges, Nanotechnologies, Biotechnology and Space.
- Societal challenges focusing on key areas like Health, Food security, Energy and Climate, where there is a need to keep the debate not merely restricted to scientific and political institutions, but expand it to include a wider public.
The H2020 goal is to bring excellent research results to market with benefits to citizens by strengthening innovation with bottom-up activities, allowing Europe’s brightest minds to propose their own solutions, reversing the brain-drain and attracting talent from around the world and retain researchers within Europe, developing industrial leadership and competitiveness, and promoting science education.
The European Physical Society [EPS] should be an active player in the grand challenges defined in the H2020 framework programme, as it offers a unique opportunity to emphasize the link between basic understanding and technological applications. The H2020 programme appropriately reflects the recurring connectedness in natural sciences, where the whole is often mirrored in the smallest parts, as poetically expressed by W. Blake: “To see the world in a grain of sand / Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand”.
We should insist that European H2020 funding be ambitious and well supported by actions at a national level, in order to re-launch Europe as a knowledge-based society as this is the only way to deal with the future social and economic challenges; we should emphasize the importance of the human factor in science and education as the drive for Europe’s research and innovation; we should demand the full commitment of EU politicians, as key pillars of our democratic societies, to a truly global European Research and Education policy.
Science and education facilitate new visions for coping with social challenges, by critically challenging the old ways. This critical attitude should enable independent and rational solutions for the difficult social and economic issues that lie ahead of us.
Research and education can offer the opportunities and commitment to society that Europe needs.
I am very glad to signal in this respect that the EPS has just issued – on 1 February 2013 – a Statement on research and education opportunities for innovation in H2020. In this statement, as repeatedly stressed on several occasions (including in this Editorial), the EPS newly and strongly supports the view that investment in scientific research is essential for economic growth. The EPS Statement supports the position in the Open Letter recently published by the ERC and the European Round Table of Industrialists [ERT] calling for the approval of €80 billion for H2020, as well as the previous Open Letter to the EU Heads of States and Governments signed by 42 Nobel Laureates and 5 Fields Medalists expressing their support for maintaining the research and innovation budget in H2020.
Carlos Hidalgo,EPS Executive Committee Member
To download the full EPS Statement – On research and education opportunities for innovation in Horizon 2020, and for more details, visit the EPS website.
