Enlarged Central Council

A deeper commitment from institutions, companies and civilian society in the research field

Even though in its way to recovery, in the field of scientific research Europe is still well behind the United States. In order to reduce that gap, the private sector and the member states of the EU must play a key role, but it is also necessary to allow the citizenship to become familiar with science. The R+D policy in the EU acted as the main thread in the closing act of the ELEC's Central Council, with the speeches of Cosmocaixa's Director, Mr. Jorge Wagensberg, and the Deputy Director of the Fundació Catalana per a la Recerca i la Innovació (Catalan Foundation for Research and Innovation), Ms. Montserrat Torné.

03.06.2006

A warning was issued to the European strategy in the field of investigation on the last day of the ELEC's Central Council, held in Barcelona to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the League's Spanish Committee. The Deputy Director of the Fundació Catalana per a la Recerca i la Innovació (FCRI), Ms. Montserrat Torné, and the Director of the science museum Cosmocaixa, Mr. Jorge Wagensberg, put forward, in the museum premises, the necessary models and improvements in the scientific field. The debate was introduced by the President of the Spanish Committee, Mr. Carles A. Gasòliba.

Current data show a reduction of the research gap between Europe and the United States, which indicates that some things are changing. However, the FCRI's Deputy Director expressed the scientific community's discontent about the budget changes in the 2007-2013 Seventh Framework Programme, which ended up in 47 billion euros instead of the expected 72 billion.

That does not eliminate, according to Ms. Torné, the validity of the Lisbon Strategy agreed in 2000 by the European Union (EU), in which research, innovation and education are acknowledged as the main pillars for Europe's growth and development. But, this time, the application of its message must be updated.

For example, said Ms. Torné, the fact that between 5 % and 10 % of the subventions come from the Union, while the rest comes directly from the member states, is not a good indicator. In that sense, it is important to modify the decision process of the aids. Torné suggested that the big projects be controlled from the EU, while being coordinated with the state research programmes.

Anyway, the most important aspect to improve is, according to the FCRI's Deputy Director, the involvement of the private sector -by taking Finland's and Sweden's successful examples as models-, with a determined and clear link between public powers, universities and the industry. In that sense, it is important to be aware of the real needs of Small and Medium sized Companies, a basic network in the EU.

Science and citizenship

The debate held in the Cosmocaixa Museum was attended by its Director, Mr. Jorge Wagensberg, who relieves that science in Europe is still too far from the citizens. That is why the museums like the one he manages must be thought of as suitable places for social interaction, with the purpose to encourage models, methodology and scientific tendencies.

Wagensberg explained the three pillars of the new science museum system represented by the Cosmocaixa Museum. On one hand, everything displayed is real. On second place, every displayed item or case is accompanied by an explanation of the scientific process that was followed, through text, images and video. Finally, beauty is used to attract the visitor, something that many science museums reject for fear of betraying scientific rigor.

The speech of the two lecturers closed the ELEC's Central Council and the celebrations of the 50th. anniversary of its Spanish Committee. There was time for an extraordinary meeting of LECE's Central Committee in the same building of Cosmocaixa. LECE's president, Mr. Anton Van Rosum expressed his congratulations for the success of Barcelona's meeting, and, from what was discussed in the debates, he compromised to deal with a proposal in autumn to dinamyze the LECE. Afterwards, CosmoCaixa offered an informal lunch to the members of the League.