research commissioner, comes to fruition, the continent may finally

realize its long-standing goal of a single market for science and technology.

Her proposals aim to break down barriers to the transfer

of knowledge and researchers, as well as to reform regulations that

hamper high-tech businesses.

The plan has three key elements. It would create a single patent

system that would grant companies protection for their inventions

across all the European Union (EU) member states at once, removing

the need to file separate patents in multiple countries. It would also

set up an EU-wide pension scheme to make it easier for researchers to

move around the continent. At present, pensions are not transferable

from one member state to the next, which discourages movement.

Finally, it would increase public procurement: directing the money

that EU agencies spend on areas such as telecommunications, energyefficient

buildings and computer software towards EU businesses,

thereby spurring home-grown innovation rather than going after

the cheapest price abroad.

None of these ideas is new, although in the past they have struggled

to gain traction. The EU patent, for example, has previously

proved too controversial in too many countries to make much headway,

and the others have never had a sufficiently vigorous political

champion.

This time things may be different. Geoghegan-Quinn was an

experienced politician in her native Ireland before assuming her

current post, and she has quickly earned a reputation for being nononsense,

hard-driving and determined. And, for the first time, she

is pushing an integrated plan. Instead of treating research (primarily

in academic institutions) and innovation (primarily in the business

world) in a piecemeal fashion, as the commission has done in the

past, her plan treats them as an organic whole. The goal is to create

a smooth flow from research discoveries to products and services

on the market.

Geoghegan-Quinn says that the plan will refocus Europe’s research

efforts on a series of grand challenges facing the continent as a whole,

such as climate change and an ageing population. New partnerships

would bring together the EU, member states and public and private

researchers to work on specific aspects

of these grand challenges. For example,

for the ageing-population challenge,

these partnerships could work on tackling

chronic diseases or on developing

technologies to allow older people to

stay in their homes for longer. Existing

initiatives, such as Europe’s multibillion-

euro Framework programme for research, and the Joint Technology

Initiative’s public–private research partnerships, will also be

integrated with the plan to avoid overlap.

Although there are some potential pitfalls in the plan — the pursuit

of direct societal benefits and high-tech industrial growth cannot

be allowed to undermine basic research, for example — it is on the

right track. Geoghegan-Quinn’s vision will come under scrutiny this

autumn, when EU heads of state meet to discuss it in detail. The task

now is to sustain political momentum, and to ensure that the necessary

decisions are taken at that autumn summit. European research

minsters should explicitly give their endorsement for moving this

agenda forward when they next meet on 25 May.

Geoghegan-Quinn’s reforms are especially important given Europe’s

current financial crisis. Budgetary pain is looming for every one, so

the kind of integration and coherence that Geoghegan-Quinn has

outlined is essential for making the most effective use of the research

“The goal is to create

a smooth flow from

research discoveries

to products and

services on the

market.”

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