Science and innovation: the key to a smart future
THE EU today stands at a crucial point in its economic future. The challenges of globalisation and economic restructuring are mounting. We are not just competing within the EU any more, now the EU is competing with the world.
Not only do we have to vie with the traditional economic giants of the USA and Japan, but also increasingly with the emerging economies of India and China. The EU must find a way to meet these challenges - and science and technology are the key.
To achieve this, a strong strategic approach is necessary. But no country can act in a vacuum. So-called 'blue skies' or 'frontier' research is often impossible for individual countries to undertake unaided because no single country has the finance or infrastructure to go it alone.
The EU's current science funding scheme, the Framework Programme, is already boosting scientific research and development in the EU, and is forecast, thanks to Tony Blair's insistence during the UK's Presidency, to increase by 75% over the next seven years.
Yet on the whole the EU has a long way to go to catch up with some of our competitors abroad. The EU goal is to reach a 3% target over the next five years. For the EU to reach this 3% level it would require 700,000 more scientists. To achieve this we must create the right conditions to attract some of the 400,000 European scientists working in the US back home.
We must also tackle the crisis in the study of science and technology at European Universities which, for example, has seen number of graduates in physics fall by 17% between 1997-1998 and 2001-2002. But increases in funding and resources will prove fruitless unless we utilise our research commercially. We must transfer our know-how into industry and exploit the discoveries we make. The increased funding for EU science will not be enough to catch-up with the likes of the US unless we put more effort into boosting this so-called 'technology transfer'.
By engaging with the EU, boosting expenditure on R&D, linking cutting-edge high-quality research to industry, and increasing technological 'roll out' we will be able to go some way to closing the competitive gap between us and our competitors. In doing do we will ensure long-term economic sustainability and secure quality of life, opportunity and prosperity for all.
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