Paper [184 KB] The countries of the European Union, which Spain
joined in 1986, have created a system of collective institutions
and mechanisms of action that make it impossible to consider
the Spanish reality without putting it into a European context.
One of the areas in which the dynamics of European integration
is clear is that comprising research policies, technological
development, and innovation.
The European Union has recently moved various aspects of research
and technological development (R+TD) and innovation further
up its action agenda. For example, the idea of a European Research
Area is one of the priorities of the EU political agenda. This
serves the Lisbon Competitiveness Strategy and the Barcelona
Objectives for Investment in R+D+I. Research, technological
development, and space are fundamental aspects of the EU’s
internal policies in the Treaty Establishing a Constitution
for Europe. To this should be added the European Commission’s
proposal for the Seventh Framework Programme for Research
and Technological Development (2007–2013).
Within the framework of the European Research Area, the EU member
states recently unanimously declared themselves in favour of
supporting basic research. The European Commission has given
this course of action visibility, budgetary treatment, and specific
management in its proposal to create a European Research
Council (ERC) within the Seventh Framework Programme. The
programme itself highlights the need to pay greater attention
to high-quality basic research. Around 10% of the programme’s
total budget will be allocated to basic research, and managed
independently.
In the European context, Spain should become a key player in
R+D aspects of the integration process. This would help Spain’s
specific characteristics to be taken into account.
Moreover, Spain’s national R+D policies should also be
placed into this European context. They would then be strengthened,
coordinated, and integrated, instead of moving in a different
direction –as often occurs. The role of companies is also
crucial, but they have serious shortfalls and therefore require
the most attention.
Proposals
General proposals
- Spain is no longer one of the member states with the lowest
per capita salaries. As a result, the level of competitiveness
needed to successfully face challenges arising in the international
market should be based mainly on its capacity to create,
adapt, and apply knowledge. Consequently, other essential
factors are: a good education, excellent scientific research,
innovative technological development, an enterprising industrial
sector, and investment capital that is used more than revenue.
- The implementation of the Bologna process in universities
will be of fundamental importance to European integration.
Spain should make good use of this opportunity to readapt
university structures so that they can contribute appropriately
to increasing R+D development.
- Spain should endeavour to become a key player in the development
of the European integration process in the R+D field. To achieve
this, it should develop an active European R+D strategy. In
addition, national and regional R+D policies should be put
into a European context, so that they can be strengthened,
coordinated, and integrated.
- The main European arena for transnational research
has been defined by the Seventh Framework Programme. Therefore,
funding agencies, Spain’s research organisations, and
officials and agencies responsible for scientific and technological
policy need to immediately adopt measures that enable active
and effective participation in the formal decision-making
processes of European institutions in a way that makes
use of the country’s expert knowledge. Measures should
also give organisational, technical, and financial support
to those research groups and innovative companies that
could participate in future European Union R+D initiatives.
- A legislative, organisational, and normative framework is needed to successfully develop a policy regarding international, cooperative scientific research, technological development, and industrial innovation. This framework would help the system’s administration to become specialised, dynamic, flexible, and independent, and ensure that actions are coordinated.
- A 25% increase in the average annual real investment in
scientific research and civil technological development in
Spain (see Chaps. 1- 7) is needed over the next 4 years, if
the country’s R+D+I commitment is to converge with that
of other European countries and approach the Barcelona objective
of 3% of GDP. The proposal to double the Framework Programme’s
budget is an excellent opportunity for Spanish science and
technology. To make effective use of it, Spanish budgets should
be increased simultaneously and their management structure
reformed.
- The best way to attain sufficient quality and quantity of
human resources, and to counteract the negative effects of
mobility, is to increase funding and researchers’ social
prestige. This can be achieved by raising public awareness
of a career in research and improving working conditions for
researchers. Spain should support the European Charter
for Researchers and the Code of Conduct for the recruitment
of researchers. The latter document presents a series
of recommendations, including:
– Recognise the research profession at the postgraduate level.
– Establish a clear framework for the professional and personal career of scientific researchers and technologists.
– Favour the mobility of research staff’ between universities and research organisations.
– Provide lifelong learning opportunities for researchers.
– Establish stable and transparent methods– in the public service or not– for recruiting trained researchers into the system, according to their merits and abilities.
– Develop training programmes for techniques that support research.
- Adopt measures, along the lines of a Commission initiative,
aimed at creating a virtual community. This would
aid in the development of mutually beneficial initiatives
for transnational scientific cooperation between the community’s
different groups and organisations. At the same time it would
keep the knowledge assets and scientific reference resources
of excellent Spanish researchers, in Spain and abroad, active.
- Optimise use of large-scale research infrastructures in
which Spain participates by strengthening related thematic
areas.
- Business competitiveness has to be increased to strengthen
Spain’s role in an emerging Europe and to further its
population’s social well-being. The following elements,
among others, are needed to achieve this. Each is complementary
to transnational collaborative research:
– Design an incentive system to increase the participation in European programmes of large companies that have technological capacity and connections with SMEs.
– Promote the creation of science and technology parks and participation in scientific euroregions (geographic groups).
– Introduce a policy for research infrastructures that is consistent with the following economies of scale: international, European, and that of the member states.
– Establish effective and complementary European and national programmes to support SMEs.
– Create synergies with other European initiatives, such as EUREKA, COST, European Science Foundation (ESF), and other science federations and associations (EIROFORUM, FEBS, EACS, etc.).
- The EU has established a fund of 2bn per year to support
basic research in all disciplines. This provides an opportunity
to reduce brain drain and increase the competitiveness of
a knowledge-based economy. Spain should make maximum use of
this fund.
- The instruments for participation proposed in the Seventh
Framework Programme are not excessively different than existing
ones. However, they do aim to strengthen the major scientific
networks and industrial technology platforms. Small research
groups and a limited number of Spanish innovative companies
will participate in this seventh programme, taking on a more
significant role of scientific, technical, and organisational
leadership than in the current programme. These groups and
companies should be provided with appropriate administrative,
legal, and financial support.
- Technology platforms are set up under the leadership
of industry. Their aim is: to define the medium and long-term
research agendas of industry, increase investment in industrial
R+D, and gear the activity of publicly funded applied-research
towards business priorities. Spain should be represented on
all the technology platforms, with authority and decisionmaking
capacity. It should be able to lead some of the platforms
(or some work areas) and make use of the definition process
to launch national technology platforms that have appropriate
funding and the participation of the public and private systems.
- Management instruments are needed to initiate actions for
strengthening regional presence (in the Seventh Framework
Programme proposal this is known as regions of knowledge).
- A system for assessing and monitoring science should
be set up to analyse the presence of Spanish universities,
research groups, and companies in European R+D programmes
and actions, and to assess the results obtained and their
impact on the Spanish system.
- Support the creation of scientific and technological reference
and/or advisory bodies that would give Spain a more active
and effective presence in the international field, particularly
in Europe.
- The government’s ministries, regional governments,
and research funding agencies should be coordinated to improve
the integration of R+D efforts. This would improve the European
presence of Spanish research groups and companies and help
obtain results. Such coordination is even more important in
the case of technological innovation, as EU structural funds
are used and the regional governments have increased their
jurisdiction in this area.
- Supporting action is needed to help promote the participation
of Spanish groups in international programmes, particularly
in the EU’s Framework Programme. This action would be
aimed at training researchers in aspects of project management.
It would also make some management units available to universities
and research organisations, to provide them with the services
they need. Other, complementary actions would be:
– Encourage the preparation of proposals by providing direct aid to groups or management units (if such units are created).
– Award additional aid to approved projects to cover expenses related to: protecting and exploiting results, OEPM (the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office) state of the art searches, costs of registering patents in Spain when they are not covered by the Framework Programme, actions fostering the creation of industrial prototypes with the collaboration of a Spanish company, drawing up business plans to create technology-based companies, etc.
–Encourage the approval of new mechanisms and procedures in the EU for administering and managing resources allocated to promoting research in all disciplines. These would avoid the excessively bureaucratic systems that are currently in use.
Papers:
The structures and
instruments of science policy Human resources in research Science and the company: towards a dynamic ecosystem for innovation in Spain Spain in Europe Science and societyCommittee:
Committee