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Economics trumps health and security for Europe’s in-house research

The European Commission’s in-house research arm is shifting resources from health and security work to a new focus on economics, its director general announced today. However, with its budget remaining flat for the foreseeable future, this means those areas identified as lower priorities will be cut.

“The underlying assumption is zero growth,” Roland Schenkel told the ESOF conference in Turin. “If there is increase in one part there is decrease in another part.”

Schenkel heads the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre (JRC), which is designed to serve as the European Union’s “reference centre” for science and technology. The JRC is made up of seven institutes in five countries and it employs around 700 core science staff along with over 400 PhD and postdocs.

Schenkel told reporters at the conference that the JRC had drawn up a five year plan to shift its focus. A new priority entitled ‘towards an open and competitive economy’ has been identified for the centre’s new 2010-2020 strategy, alongside a new role in horizon scanning. The new priorities had been drawn up in consultation with the centre’s customers – the Commission and the member states, said Schenkel.

“We are reducing in the area of health, we are reducing in the area of security and we are reducing in the area of reference materials,” he said. “… We believe this is the right strategy for the JRC.”

As 35% of the JRC’s staff are on temporary contracts, the shift in focus will not necessarily involve redundancies. Asked where Europe would now turn for scientific advice on health and security, Schenkel said the JRC was never intended to have a “monopoly on science advice”.

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