Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-11-14-Speech-3-165"
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"en.20011114.7.3-165"2
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"Research and development are of crucial importance if Europe is to become a continent characterised by economic growth and sound welfare. International competition, especially from the United States, increases the need for new and intensified research efforts. In its proposal in connection with the Sixth Framework Programme, the Commission has identified several important problems and research areas which Europe needs to concentrate on. Obviously, it is important that Europe’s researchers cooperate and that research efforts are coordinated to some degree. It is also very important that we should not only make it easier for researchers to travel but also facilitate the distribution of research results.
What worries us is that the framework programme involves a very considerable centralisation of research. Major resources are being invested in a small number of selected areas. Research is thus being directed in an unfortunate way because the Member States’ own research routes will be governed by the Commission’s priorities. For small countries with limited research budgets, the EU is thus in danger of becoming one of the main bodies that funds research, something which would give rise to an unfortunate degree of centralisation.
As liberals, we applaud the principle of independent research. From the point of view of efficiency, independent research has shown itself to be far superior to politically directed research. In the long run, societies which provide researchers with large room for manoeuvre when it comes to choosing subjects and methods achieve better results than societies in which the politicians determine the direction to be taken by research. The principle of the independent pursuit of knowledge has, for centuries, strongly characterised research in Europe. Universities and other institutions of higher learning have an important role to play in cooperating with industry and the public sector, but their most important task must not become that of taking orders from the latter.
We believe that the Sixth Framework Programme would give rise to undue centralisation of independent research. We have therefore chosen to abstain from voting on the Caudron report."@en1
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