Twenty-two of Europe’s top scientists are due in Ireland on Tuesday to seek the Government’s help to achieve their next breakthrough – doubling funding for science research.
The visitors, who include globally recognised experts and a Nobel Prize winner, make up the scientific council of the European Research Council (ERC). The council is a grant dispensing body with a budget of €16 billion for 2021-2027, which they would like to increase in the next period.
But their bigger goal is convincing EU member states to back a European Commission proposal to increase the overall EU research and innovation budget from €93.5 billion it was allocated for 2021-2027 to at least €175 billion for 2028-2034.
“We need to be more competitive against the US and China,” said Maria Leptin, a German biologist and ERC president.
“That means competitive in our economies of course, but the economy is based on knowledge and so it must mean competitive in research too. You don’t have to take my word for this – you just have to see what Mario Draghi says.
“In his report [the 2024 Future of European Competitiveness report] he was perfectly clear if we want to be more competitive we need to at least double funding.”
The Draghi report has been influential in shaping the EU’s economic agenda and competitiveness is a key theme in the bloc’s next budget or multiannual financial framework (MFF) for 2028-2034.
As incoming EU president, Ireland will chair high-level negotiations on the MFF, with knock-on effects for all its components, including research.
So far, the quest for a minimum of €175 billion for the sector is not going well. The outgoing Cypriot presidency recently knocked the figure back to €167 billion.
“That’s just the first slash. This will be the first of many, many cuts unless we all get up and scream and fight,” said Leptin.
“Ireland has the next EU presidency and I hope Ireland will take this fight forward.”
The ERC council has planned a two-day trip to Ireland to meet Minister for Science James Lawless, his Northern Ireland counterpart, Caoimhe Archibald, Taoiseach Micheál Martin and heads of the pharma, tech and food science industries.
Ireland’s council representative, Trinity College Dublin professor of biochemistry Luke O’Neill, said it was an honour to host his fellow members at such a critical time for science.
“For Europe to be competitive there needs to be increased funding for science, including for the ERC, which is Europe’s most effective mechanism for funding fundamental research,” he said.
Among O’Neill’s fellow members is Emmanuelle Charpentier, 2020 Nobel Prize winner for chemistry, whose work has produced game-changing gene therapies.
But the council’s expertise is wide-ranging and includes a historian, a geographer and a social anthropologist. Leptin said the ERC’s approach to research is open and funding is not funnelled only to projects with proven commercial applications.
“We don’t ask that question with the purpose of directing funding. Nobody asked Maxwell and Hertz what it would take to invent the radio.
“They were working on elementary particles and electromagnetic waste and then Marconi came along and said, oh we can make a radio out of that.
“I mean, rockets were invented before the beginning of the last century. All that jet propulsion, rockets, fuels – all that came from fundamental knowledge in materials, chemistry and physics.
“AI, where do people think that came up? That was not born in 2023. That was born in the middle of the last century with geeks and eggheads in their ivory towers.
“That’s why. If we don’t fund now then we will have nothing to invent and innovate and create wealth in five or 10 years’ time.”