Bid to stop brain drain

"More and more researchers trained in Europe leave for and remain in the United States. These considerable losses in terms of human resources are a drain on European research resources," said European Research Commissioner Philippe Busquin when addressing a conference on the future of human resources in research.

"They reflect the lack of attractiveness and social recognition characteristic in Europe of the profession of researcher. To achieve the EU's objectives for this decade there is an urgent need to upgrade this profession and the conditions under which research is conducted. The European Research Area will not really see the light of day until it is also a European area for researchers."

The Barcelona European Council meeting of March 2002 decided that in order to achieve the objective of raising Europe's investment in research to three per cent of GDP, the EU will need another 500,000 researchers.

Under the Sixth Research Framework Programme for 2002-2006, €1.58 billion, or nearly 10 per cent of the overall budget, have been earmarked for the training, mobility and career development of researchers.

In June 2003, the Commission will submit a communication on the career of researchers, followed in the autumn by the launching of a European mobility portal and a network of assistance centres for mobility.

In relative terms, the EU produces more science graduates (Ph.Ds) than the US but has fewer researchers (5.36 per 1,000 of the working population in the EU, compared with 8.66 in the US and 9.72 in Japan).

The proportion of women researchers is only 29 per cent of the total in Europe, falling as low as 11 per cent where the number of full-time teachers is concerned.

A recent Eurobarometer survey indicates a lack of interest among young people for science, although figures vary from country to country and from discipline to discipline: 67.3 per cent of the young people questioned consider that science lessons are not sufficiently attractive, 53.4 per cent think that young people are less interested in scientific subjects, 42.4 per cent think that the career prospects are insufficient and 40 per cent believe the salaries are not sufficiently attractive.

In order to achieve the Lisbon objectives, and make the EU the most dynamic and most competitive knowledge-based economy in the world by 2010, the Commission has put in place a series of converging measures aimed at increasing the opportunities with regard to training, mobility and career development for researchers.

It is imperative that researchers' profile is raised in society, because there are definite signs that the profession of researcher is not properly appreciated by the general public.

Besides, researchers and universities should be more involved in the knowledge-based society and economy, and especially in consolidating the links between academia and industry. And, lastly, measures should be implemented that target the wider public in order to improve the image of researchers within society and attract more young people to scientific careers.

The programmes funded by the Commission under the Marie Curie scheme place the emphasis on the initial training of researchers starting their careers, either through transnational research projects or through better structured training in a more university-orientated environment. Another initiative concerns individual grants to meet the additional training needs of researchers who already have professional experience.

Other measures concern the transfer of knowledge to the EU's less-favoured regions and the candidate or acceding countries, in both the academic sector and industry.

An important innovation concerns the instruments designed to encourage the creation of research teams, establish university chairs and promote the return of researchers from abroad, mainly the US, and their professional integration, as well as the opening up of all the instruments available to researchers from third countries.

In order to support these actions, in 2003 the Commission, in cooperation with the member states and the associated countries, will launch a European portal for the mobility of researchers and a European network of mobility centres.

These two initiatives, part of the implementation of the Communication on a Mobility Strategy for the European Research Area, are intended to provide exhaustive information and local assistance for researchers involved in mobility with regard to any question concerning their establishing themselves and staying in their host country.

The conference provided an opportunity to take stock of the current situation regarding researchers in Europe, stressing two major challenges. The first concerns the role of universities in the knowledge-based economy following the Communication adopted on this subject in February 2003 at the instigation of Mr Busquin and Viviane Reding, the European commissioners responsible for research and education respectively.

The second concerns raising the profile of the profession of researcher and improving the profile of researchers in society.

With this in mind, in June 2003 the Commission will be submitting a Communication on the career of researchers. This will cover a wide variety of topics, such as a genuine employment market for researchers in Europe, better coordination of national recruitment, assessment and career development systems, and greater recognition for qualifications and professional experience at European level.

Lucija Cok, Slovenian minister of education, science and sport, told the conference that "candidate countries dispose of rather strong potentials to contribute to the establishment and further development of the European Research Area".

These "lie in human resources and numerous, well-known, centres of excellence traditionally based on particular scientific disciplines, yet gradually transforming into proper knowledge-driven development centres".

Still many of them lack necessary competences and skills in project application and management. Neither do they have enough support from national authorities and from business quarters.

And yet these countries have "the ambition to become competitive, dynamic, knowledge-based economies". It is for this reason that in wanting to establish "more systematic bridges between academia and the business community" they would like their universities to become centres of research, education and innovation.