Top Forscher fürchten “radikalen Wechsel” in EU-Politik

Clara de la Torre, inter-institutional relations and coordinator of the Framework Programme at the European Commission, said the process of shaping the next FP8 programme was beginning. It will, she said, have a reasonable mixture of top-down and bottom-up research and will be more efficient than the current programme, FP7.

"The Commission has made several important changes aimed at simplifying the procedures. In the longer term we will make more use of lump sums, as has been suggested by the Court of Auditors," said de la Torre, noting that not everyone is in favour of such a move.

She revealed that the Commission is thinking of applying the results-based approach in some pilot projects in 2011 under FP7 to see how it would work for FP8.

Portuguese MEP Maria da Graça Carvahlo (European People's Party), who has a track record as a science minister and Commission advisor on research, said her appointment to the European Parliament's committee on financial perspectives indicates that R&D will be part of the discussion.

She said improving education standards is essential so that member states have the capacity to absorb investment in science, and noted the need for researcher-led investigations.

"Meeting the societal challenges defined by politicians will be one of the focuses but it's also important to fund frontier research so we are prepared to face new unknown challenges," said da Graça Carvahlo.

She also said she is concerned by efforts to link funding to results. "I'm very worried. The current officials have good intentions but you never know who will follow. From a researcher's point of view, the fear is that if your result doesn't match the goal set by policymakers, you will enter into endless discussions to get paid for your work. We need to trust researchers more," she said.

Michael Wilson of University College London said he is a great supporter of the Framework Programmes and welcomed the opportunity to work with other researchers across Europe.

However, he said researchers are "radical freethinkers" who have a natural antipathy to bureaucracy. "As researchers we want money to do research. I want trust and flexibility to alter things as I see fit, without having to write reports to managers. Science is not static, it's not linear," said Wilson.

He said he accepts that he has to be accountable to those who fund his work and to publish his work in the interest of society. However, he slammed the EU's accounting procedures, labelling them a "total nightmare".

Timesheets, said Wilson, are naïve and pointless. "It's not a clock-on clock-off factor," he said.

"I'd like to see more transparency in how the grand challenges and projects are chosen. I'm also uneasy when it comes to goal-oriented funding. It could lead to a cautious approach, with researchers tending towards conservative, deliverable targets rather than taking on adventurous, ground-breaking work," Wilson said.

Nonetheless, Wilson said European scientists are now encouraged to collaborate across borders, something that was almost impossible 30 years ago when he started his career.

Kurt Deketelaere, secretary-general of the League of European Research Universities (LERU), said the 3% R&D spending target included in the Europe 2020 strategy is to be welcomed but should now be given more legal weight.

"We want the 3% put into a directive to give it a legal framework with legal consequences," he said.