Boon Or Burden: What Has the EU Ever Done for Science? More Than 500 Million People and 28 Nations Make up the European Union

EU SCIENCE NEWS

The EU affects science from the collaborative opportunities that the bloc creates to the billions of euros that it distributes for research and innovation.

EUROPEAN UNION Boon or burden: what has the EU ever done for science? More than 500 million people and 28 nations make up the European Union. It will lose one of its richest, most populous members, if the United Kingdom votes to leave on 23 June. Ahead of a possible ‘Brexit’, Nature examines five core ways that the EU shapes the course of research.

collaboration. And because Marie Skłodowska- Another downside of mobility is that much SCIENTIST SUPERHIGHWAY Curie fellows often return to their home coun- of the flow goes just one way, says Maria Helena Science doesn’t respect national boundaries, so try, they redistribute skills and knowledge. Nazaré, a physicist and former rector of the it helps if scientists don’t have to either — and “This is fantastic for Eastern Europe and other University of Aveiro in Portugal. “I think that’s EU rules and programmes encourage research- less-well developed countries to build research already creating problems.” Countries such ers to hit the road. capacity,” says Lidia Borrell-Damian, director as the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and

EU citizens have the right to live and work for research and innovation at the European Sweden tend to be net attractors for the Marie DRACHEV/AFP/GETTY VIKTOR in any country in the bloc, and the European University Association in Brussels. Skłodowska-Curie actions, whereas Spain, Commission’s Marie Skłodowska-Curie actions A 2011–13 study found that 31% of EU aca- Greece and Italy lose talent. Nazaré also notes pay for 9,000 scientists each year to move to demics had worked outside their country of that transferring pension and benefits between or within the EU. The actions fill a gap left by residence in the previous decade. And lead- countries can be tough. national funders, which are often reluctant to ing scientists say that hiring from abroad helps Still, the commission is committed to further fund researchers outside their country, says them to respond to local skills shortages. The greasing the wheels. Funding aimed at encour- Caroline Whelan, a senior scientific officer at survey also found that 80% of those who had aging mobility has soared in the past two dec- Science Europe, the Brussels-based organiza- worked internationally saw a positive effect ades to €6.2 billion (US$6.9 billion) in 2014–20 tion of national research councils. The EU on their research skills, and 60% thought that — and the commission is tackling the pensions Erasmus exchange programme has transplanted mobility had strongly increased their research issue. It is also growing its EURAXESS portal, more than 3.3 million students, and 470,000 output (see go.nature.com/28wvqta). an EU-wide website that lists jobs and support teaching and administrative staff, since 1987. But the experiences were not all positive: for moving researchers, and has revamped its Although there is little information on more academics said that their job options had ‘scientific visa’ package for non-EU researchers. how such programmes affect scientists’ over- decreased as a result of moving than said that Notably, the United Kingdom has opted out of all mobility, they boost opportunities for opportunities had increased, for example. the visa, together with Denmark.

NEWS EU SCIENCE

The European Union has dedicated more than €120 billion (almost 13%) of its 2014–20 budget to research and innovation (R&I). A host of other EU-funded programmes also support EU SPENDING or are connected to R&I activities, but don’t de ne the amount of their investment.

Structural Programmes with Programmes Research and funds for unde ned funds connected to innovation TOTAL 8% R&I for R&I R&I activity ITER €960 ~5% (thermonuclear Copernicus Health billion fusion project) €4.3 bn €0.4 bn 2015/1017; EPRS EU REG SOURCES: 6% €3 bn COSME Horizon Building innovation Satellite Galileo (for small 2020 capacity, mainly in monitoring for enterprises) €74.8 bn least-developed €7. bn environment Euratom areas of the EU and security €2.3 bn €.6 bn ~€44 bn (from larger LIFE regional fund) programme The Euratom programme The global satellite €3.5 bn (2014–18) is negotiated under a navigation system allots separate treaty; it supports €100 million speci cally Erasmus research and training around for research (relocation nuclear safety, radiation protection for education) and nuclear-waste management €4.8 bn

Connecting Europe HORIZON 2020 €74.8 bn €2.9 bn European Institute of ‘Excellent science’ ‘Industrial leadership’ Innovation & Technology €24.2 bn €6.5 bn €2.4 bn

Other ‘Societal challenges’ European Research Marie Skłodowska- €3. bn Council Curie actions €28.6 bn €3. bn €6.2 bn

A Europe-wide agency to fund high-risk, high-impact research; half of its funds have gone to the United Kingdom, Germany and France

UNIQUE SCIENCE funding agencies’ list of priorities. which conditions work best. The large collabo- Scientists like to complain loudly about some But the issue is of perennial concern to the ration, which joins 14 biomedical laboratories, aspects of the commission’s ‘Framework’ public. And studying it requires collaboration clinics and companies, is essential, says TRANS funding programmes, which are dedicated to between radiation-protection agencies and EURO’s coordinator, neurologist Roger Barker research and innovation (see ‘EU spending’). academics, as well as the use of large data sets, at the University of Cambridge, UK. “Without To access a vast pot of cash geared to meet- which can be gathered only by multiple collabo- the EU, I doubt this would have happened.” ing ‘Societal Challenges’ — which amounts to rating nations. Trust between companies is crucial to an estimated €28.6 billion of the €74.8 billion These factors make low-dose-radiation stud- the Advanced Immunization Technologies available under Horizon 2020, the Framework ies perfect fodder for EU funding, says Thomas (ADITEC) project, which aims to create a programme for 2014–20 — they must meld Jung, head of radiation protection and health at generic toolbox to speed up vaccine develop- themselves into large multinational collabora- the German Federal Office of Radiation Protec- ment. Under the confidentiality agreements tions, and adjust their research to fit EU stra- tion in Munich, which has participated in the of the consortium, which the commission has tegic goals. But these constraints have fostered series of low-dose-radiation projects that the funded since 2011, companies are comfortable many valuable projects. commission has supported since 2010. sharing the components of their proprietary “I am a big fan of these programmes,” says Societal Challenges funding has also sup- vaccines. The project has already produced the Nadia Rosenthal, scientific director of the Jack- ported projects that others shy away from, such first direct comparison of different companies’ son Laboratory in Bar Harbor, Maine, who as transplanting cells derived from the brains ‘adjuvants’, substances that strengthen immune has collaborated with several EU consortia on of fetuses into the brains of people with Par- responses (N. P. H. Knudsen et al. Sci. Rep. 6, mouse-genetics projects, which she says gen- kinson’s disease. In 2003, researchers around 19570; 2016). “We had always thought it would erated world-class science. “The coordination the world abandoned this controversial line of be impossible to compare them,” says ADITEC of talents they can achieve would be very hard research — which tries to replace the neurons coordinator Rino Rappuoli, chief scientist of to pull off in the United States — or in the UK whose loss causes the illness’s symptoms — after GSK Vaccines in Siena, Italy. alone, if it were not connected to Europe.” many trial participants failed to benefit and no Take research into the health effects of low- one could work out why. Then, in 2014, the dose radiation, which people may encounter commission-funded TRANSEURO trial began. LIFTED THE EAST during a CT scan or if they live within a few TRANSEURO aims to transplant neurons In late 2000, when NATO sponsored a meeting tens of kilometres of the site of the Fukushima into 150 people with Parkinson’s in the United on science in Central and Eastern Europe, much disaster in Japan. So small are the risks — if they Kingdom, Sweden, France and Germany using of the region was a world apart from the EU. exist at all — that such research is low on most harmonized clinical protocols to help establish Years of communist thinking had nourished

EU SCIENCE NEWS

the illusion that the mere existence of institutes and research facilities was more important than EUROPEAN, BUT NOT EU their actual performance. Attitudes have changed, partly thanks to Although separate, CERN and ESA receive EU funds. the EU, which absorbed the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Before the EU began to have a major role in research, by about five years. CERN now has Slovakia and Slovenia in 2004, then Bulgaria coordinating Europe-wide research in the 21 member states and is a major recipient and Romania in 2007 and Croatia in 2013. 1990s, the task fell mainly to pan-European of EU funds, including for a 2020 upgrade These countries have had a low rate of suc- research organizations such as the CERN of its Large Hadron Collider, which scientists cess in winning grants from the Framework particle-physics laboratory. used to discover the Higgs boson. programmes. But all of the former communist Established by treaty in 1952 by Another organization that grew up states are recipients of the commission’s ‘struc- 11 countries, CERN, near Geneva, alongside the EU is the European Space tural funds’ — subsidies designed to reduce Switzerland, was born in the same post- Agency (ESA). It arose from a 1975 merger social and economic disparities, a goal of the war spirit of peace as led to the formation between the European Space Research EU. How the funds are used is decided locally, of the EU. But the lab pre-dates the EU’s Organisation and the European Launch but of the €170 billion available for ‘cohesion main forerunner, the European Economic Development Organisation. Both were and regional development’ in 2007–13, the Community, which had no remit for created in the 1960s to guarantee Europe commission pushed for €20 billion to be spent independent access to space. on research. In 2014–20, almost €44 billion is Rosetta’s Philae ESA has racked up a string of successes,

ESA/GETTY meant to be used for science and innovation in lander touches including the Rosetta mission that put a poorer regions. down on a comet. lander on a comet in 2014. The EU is now the The cash has been most effective when used biggest single contributor to the 22-nation- to refurbish universities and provide labs with strong agency, accounting for some 20% the equipment needed to train students and of its budget. ESA and the EU are partners entice researchers to stay, says Peter Tindemans, in the multibillion-dollar Copernicus Earth secretary-general of science-advocacy group observation system and in the Galileo global EuroScience in Strasbourg, France. satellite navigation system. The funds have also financed the €850-million Extreme Light Infrastructure, a pan-European laser facility under construc- Either in an attempt to win more of its grants developed nations, says Rémi Barré, an emeri- tion at sites in the Czech Republic, Hungary and or simply inspired by the ERC, member states tus researcher at the National Conservatory of Romania. The facility is expected to attract lead- are redesigning national policies to make their Arts and Crafts in Paris. ing talent from around the world to the region, science more competitive, says Jose Labastida, The gradual political, economic and research but Tindemans cautions that improvements to head of the ERC’s scientific department. He integration of the EU’s member states has the research environment must come first. “You cites Poland’s National Science Centre, set up created an environment that is conducive to can’t jump-start scientific development solely in 2011, as an example. collaboration, according to geneticist Paul with large infrastructures,” he says. And 17 countries have run schemes that Nurse, head of the Crick Institute in London. fund ERC runners-up — applicants who met Research is now embedded across the EU’s the quality threshold but were unsuccess- activities, from the bloc’s negotiation of the FOSTERING EXCELLENCE ful — essentially reusing the agency’s high- COP21 climate accord in December 2015 to its To win cash from EU funding programmes, quality peer-review process. “The ERC has environmental-protection policies and regula- researchers must often fit their work into raised the scientific level all over Europe,” tory bodies such as the London-based European broader societal or economic goals. But one says Catherine Cesarsky, an astronomer at the Medicines Agency. corner of the European funding apparatus is all French Atomic Energy Commission near Paris. Contact between science ministers from about science for science’s sake. different member states and researchers has Set up in 2007 to raise the quality of research become the norm, says Frank Gannon, for- across Europe, the European Research Council RESEARCH MELTING POT mer head of the intergovernmental European (ERC) awards generous grants that are open to Science thrives on collaboration — and the EU Molecular Biology Organization. By con- any discipline, come with minimum bureau- has partnered with other agencies (see ‘Euro- trast, he recalls how fragmented European cracy and are judged solely on the quality of pean, but not EU’) and creates myriad opportu- research was a few decades ago when he was a the application. nities for researchers to pool ideas and cooperate. researcher in Ireland. “The sense of isolation of The ERC budget has grown from €7.5 billion Most of the funding for the EU’s Framework a researcher was massive.” ■ in 2007–13 to €13.1 billion for 2014–20. At up programmes is reserved for projects in which to €2.5 million over 5 years per researcher, its partnerships are formed by at least three organi- Reporting by Alison Abbott, Declan Butler, grants are longer and larger than those of most zations from different countries. The last pro- Elizabeth Gibney, Quirin Schiermeier and national funders. The approach seems to work: gramme, FP7, which ran from 2007 to 2013, Richard Van Noorden 7% of ERC-generated papers come in the top spent €41.7 billion of its €50.5-billion budget 1% of the most highly cited articles by disci- on some 26,000 joint projects, generating pline, publication type and year. more than 500,000 pairs of collaborative links CLARIFICATION Not everyone is happy with the ‘excellence at between research organizations, according to The News Feature ‘The material code’ all costs’ approach. Since the ERC’s inception, the commission. The Framework programmes (Nature 533, 22–25; 2016) did not make half of the grants it awarded under its three core also fund mobility grants that foster collabora- it clear that the director of the Materials schemes have gone to just three countries: the tion. Genome Project is Kristin Persson, and that United Kingdom, Germany and France. In less-well-off countries, meanwhile, she has an affiliation with the University of But the ERC system lifts the quality of structural funds equip researchers to work California, Berkeley. research beyond the projects that it funds. with their counterparts in more scientifically