Dear President of the European Commission

Stick to Science initiative [petition

The Stick to Science initiative has been set up by the European research community calling for open and barrier-free collaboration among Europe’s research and innovation (R&I) actors, who all share the same values. The initiative is an active response to the delayed  progression of association agreements with Switzerland and the United Kingdom (UK), which are being held up by political barriers that have nothing to do with science.

The signatories request that the European Council, Parliament, Commission, as well as European Union (EU) Member States, and the governments of the UK and Switzerland, recognise that advancement in R&I is best achieved when all actors in science and innovation work together across geographic boundaries. This has never been more important than now, as the world faces serious global challenges (e.g., mitigating pandemics, climate change, and addressing food security). Allowing political differences to prevent scientific collaboration is contrary to the interests of society at large.

The signatories urge the EU, the UK and Switzerland to rapidly reach association agreements so that the two countries can contribute scientifically and financially to the strength of Horizon Europe and to a truly open, inclusive and excellence-driven European Research Area.

 

content which deviates from the norm [from Pest county]

ERC descriptors

Here are the descriptors (or keywords) validated by the (European Research Council) ERC for submitting grant proposal. The recent addition of PE1_15 in the Mathematics panel should help when submitting more methodological projects:

PE1_14 Mathematical statistics
PE1_15 Generic statistical methodology and modelling
PE1_19 Scientific computing and data processing

even though other panels could prove equally suited for some, as in Computer Science and Informatics,

PE6_7 Artificial intelligence, intelligent systems, natural language processing
PE6_10 Web and information systems, data management systems, information retrieval and digital libraries, data fusion
PE6_11 Machine learning, statistical data processing and applications using signal processing (e.g. speech, image, video)
PE6_12 Scientific computing, simulation and modelling tools
PE6_13 Bioinformatics, bio-inspired computing, and natural computing

in Systems and Communication Engineering,

PE7_7 Signal processing

in Integrative Biology,

LS2_11 Bioinformatics and computational biology
LS2_12 Biostatistics

in Prevention,Diagnosis and Treatment of Human Diseases,

LS7_1 Medical imaging for prevention, diagnosis and monitoring of diseases
LS7_2 Medical technologies and tools (including genetic tools and biomarkers) for prevention, diagnosis, monitoring and treatment of diseases

and in Social Sciences and Humanities,

SH1_6 Econometrics; operations research
SH4_9 Theoretical linguistics; computational linguistics

wrong timing for lowering ERC budget

As posted in the recent issue of Nature, a pandemic is not the best time to lower the European Research Council budget! And to quote

Jean-Pierre Bourguignon is furious. The mathematician is interim president of the European Research Council (ERC), and is outraged by proposals that the agency’s budget for 2021–27 is to be cut by €1.3 billion, a reduction of almost 10% from the €14.7 billion that had been proposed by the European Commission in 2018. “I don’t understand it,” he told Nature. He wants the decision reversed. So do we.

This is especially damaging when considering the controversy surrounding the “resignation” of the previous ERC president, Mauro Ferrari, who claimed he left because the ERC refused to allocate special funds to fighting the pandemics (while the ERC scientific council pointed out his lack of investment and multiple external positions, esp. in the US). The ERC scientific council also expressed at the time how much funding fundamental research has benefited the European contribution to fighting COVID. (The forced resignation of Mauro Ferrari was the reason for Jean-Pierre Bourguignon returning as an interim president, until a new president is designated by an ERC search committee.)

Beyond the tremendous contraction of the European economy due to the pandemic and the Keynesian allocation of supporting resources to desperate companies, another reason for the reduction of the ERC budget is the UK leaving the EU and hence no longer participating to its budget. However, further funds have been allocated to medical research, as well as to defence projects, thus to the detriment of fundamental research. A classical political move, seeking short term gains over long time prospects…