iMechanica - research policies - Comments

Replies to the letter - European research system must not go ban

Mike Ciavarella — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 09:28:49 -0400

European research system must not go bananas

SIR — Luke Georghiou’s
Commentary may be applauded
by science policy-makers, but it
sent shivers down my spine as a
scientist. Curiosity-driven
research is under siege from
those who claim that they know
best how to “attain Europe’s
economic, social and
environmental goals”, and to
“engage research with the
problems that society recognizes
as central”.

.....

Andre Geim Centre for Mesoscience
and Nanotechnology, University of
Manchester, Oxford Road, Manchester
M13 9PL, UK
Large projects can
create useful
partnerships

SIR — Luke Georghiou urges
reforms to the European
Commission’s research system,
criticizing the present Framework
Programmes for their many
small and very loosely
connected projects.
The large integrated projects
of the Sixth Framework
Programme are a notable
exception. These include the
ALARM project, intended to
assess large-scale environmental
risks for biodiversity using
tested methods (www.
alarmproject.net). This
encompasses 68 partner
organizations, with some
250 participants from 35
different countries.

......

Josef Settele, Joachim Spangenberg,
Ingolf Kühn UFZ, Helmholtz Centre
for Environmental Research,
Theodor-Lieser-Strasse 4, 06120
Halle, Germany
European research
needs a dash of
anarchy

SIR — As Luke Georghiou urges,
‘Europe’s research system must
change’ — but most certainly not
in the direction he proposes. He
wants to strengthen strategic and
applied research within the EU
Framework Programme,
advocating direct political
influence on research into
“problems that society recognizes
as central” by creating even larger
directed research programmes
than we have now. But problems
can arise from ......

Theo Wallimann Institute of Cell
Biology, ETH Zurich, Hoenggerberg,
HPM D24.1, Schafmattstrasse 18,
8093 Zurich, Switzerland

michele ciavarella
www.micheleciavarella.it

see where this picture is taken from

Mike Ciavarella — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 01:33:01 -0400

Europe’s research system must change: Nature Vol 452|24 April 2008

Fusion research as an example

Yixiang Gan — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 10:11:44 -0400

Now, ITER is one of the most important and inevitable projects in fusion research toward commercial usage of fusion energy. Since it has been decided to be built in France and EU will support near 50% of the budget of 11 billion Euro, it is definitely an European, and of course international, challenge. This has been also listed in the NAE Grand challenges.

In terms of orgnization, European Fusion Development Agreement (Garching, Germany) and recently Fusion for Engergy (Barcelona, Spain) are two examples. They reassemble scientists and engineers from differenet disciplines, and in different places together for the same challenge. I think their experiences could be usefull for those challenges, i.e. to break "walls".

NAE Grand challenges for engineering

Zhigang Suo — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 11:13:39 -0400

Here is a previous iMechanica thread on the NAE Grand challenges. Also, on the NAE website, each challenge has become a long thread of discussion. These threads can be useful resources.