»science policy«

Impact factors and citation indices are a somewhat gold standard to measure quality and productivity of a scientist. But critics question the validity of these measures. Now, Jürgen Kaube writes in FAZ (24.7.2008) about a statistical report on impact factors commissioned by the International Mathematical Union (among others). The conclusion is, the significance of these citation measures like the impact factor or the Hirsch index is poor, if not nil.

Talking about carbon offsets is en vogue, and Benjamin Lester reports in Science magazine (5.10.2007) how the scientific community addresses the problem of increasing carbon emissions by conference attendees traveling -- mostly by plane -- to the many meetings. Actually, scientist should be more concerned about CO2 emissions released by their (travel) habits. Lester issues travel tips that start with "skip meetings when you can", followed by "ask conference organizers to team with local hotels to reduce linen changes and other waste for conference attendees". Thus far the funny part. Some years ago conference organizers didn't care about the carbon footprint of their meetings. It was merely a private issue of scientists. Now, wind has changed. First, on registration forms you see check boxes for compensation of your CO2 emissions. Second, organizers consider video conferences or a maximum attendance. The reason: Many conferences attract thousands of scientists (Champion is the Neuroscience conference with 35.000 in the year 2005), studies have shown that more than 90 percent of CO2 emissions of a meeting are produced by traveling by plane. One easy step to curb the scientists' emissions is to organize meetings in easy reachable cities with direct flight connections.

The European Research Council (ERC) released figures (1.10.2007) on the first stage of filtering grant applications. Roughly 9100 proposals have been submitted, 559 selected for the next round. The ERC is about to fund some 250 project with one million euro each. More detailed figures are available on the ERC's website http://erc.europa.eu

Nice idea to pair up scientists with politicians to emphasize the increasing importance of science and tech related issues in today's society and economics. This week "brings 14 scientists from around Europe to Brussels for a week where they attend meetings, seminars and networking events. The MEPs will also be visiting the labs of the scientists to find out about their work," writes the British Royal Society in a press release (3.10.2007). In recent years the Royal Society has made good experiences with the scientist-politician entanglement at Westminster.

The Economist (1.3.2007) investigates in a grant piece the changing role of research and development (R&D) in today's IT industry. What was formerly R&D is now (in the IT sector) blurred together and much more market driven, say R&D changed to 'rD', with a big emphasis on the D. The article gives a great view of U.S. corporate R&D management, as for the Economist journalists talked to many key figures at Google, IBM, HP, Xerox PARC, Microsoft, Cisco, Yahoo.

The Economist: "The Google method means researchers are part of development, says Google's CEO, Eric Schmidt. The company employs very small teams to work on a small number of ideas, some of which may turn into big hits. Failure is an essential part of the process. 'The way you say this is: Please fail very quickly—so that you can try again,' says Mr Schmidt."

Also the conclusion by John Seely Brown, a former director of Xerox PARC is remarkable: "When I started out running PARC, I thought 99 percent of the work was creating the innovation, and then throwing it over the transom for dumb marketers to figure out how to market it. Now I realise that there is at least as much creativity in finding ways to take the idea to market as coming up with the idea in the first place. I would have spent my time differently had I figured this out early on," quotes the Economist.

The start of the European Research Council (ERC) receives good marks by Martin Enserink in Science online (27.2.2007). Enserink covers research and science policy for the magazine Science in Central Europe. ERC promises a clean break with current EU research funding, in all aspects: "Although a part of the Seventh Framework Program, ERC will focus on fundamental science, reward individuals rather than networks, offer easy paperwork, and will be governed by scientists. ERC grants will also be portable: Researchers can take them along as they switch institutions if they want. Although quite common in the U.S., the concept is new to Europe," writes Enserink.
The ERC is at http://erc.europa.eu

Ralf Krauter explains in Deutschlandfunk radio (19.2.2007) the way from first negotiations to the final 7th framework programme (FP7) to boost European research. 54 billion euros are allocated for the five-year-long programme. A major step, says Krauter. But he questions that that's enough to close the gap in research spending to the US, Japan and other prospering economies in Asia. The gap to the US is 480 billion euros wide. EU politicians hope the participation by the corporate sector might help.

The Financial Times sees the EU commissioner Barroso's pet project, the European Institute of Technology, as a backburner (15.2.2007). Two main issues are still unclear: finance and structure. Barroso withdrew his first proposal of an institution of its own located in a European city and now seems to favour - in compromise - a network of research institutions across the EU managed by a staff of 60, according to the Financial Times. The budget is speculative: Barroso wants to inject some money for a start but thinks that the corporate sector will follow and contribute the major share. Critics fear that the EU's money will be missing elsewhere in research funding and that there's no signal by companies to invest.

The EU has launched a website for the EIT at http://eit.europa.eu and issued a leaflet to download at this site.

There's a steering committee called the governing board with 15 members. They select the network applications called knowledge and innovation communities (KIC). By the year 2015 the commission plans to having installed ten KICs with a working period of 7 to 15 years, an overall annual budget of up to 2 billion euros. The success is dependent now on Barroso's idea of "making business a major player at all levels and in all activities."

Alison Abbot reports at Nature online (7.2.2007) about the Italian brain gain scheme to attract researchers to Italy. It went wrong.

You never came across African science because it's hardly featured in magazines like Science or Nature? Then check an article in the Economist (1.2.2007) for some examples of research on the African continent. "Good science does get done in Africa, though it tends to go unnoticed."