Mario Draghi<\/a> says. <\/p>\n\u201cIn his report [the 2024 Future of European Competitiveness report] he was perfectly clear if we want to be more competitive we need to at least double funding.\u201d <\/p>\n
The Draghi report has been influential in shaping the EU\u2019s economic agenda and competitiveness is a key theme in the bloc\u2019s next budget or multiannual financial framework (MFF) for 2028-2034. <\/p>\n
As incoming EU president, Ireland will chair high-level negotiations on the MFF, with knock-on effects for all its components, including research. <\/p>\n
So far, the quest for a minimum of \u20ac175 billion for the sector is not going well. The outgoing Cypriot presidency recently knocked the figure back to \u20ac167 billion. <\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s just the first slash. This will be the first of many, many cuts unless we all get up and scream and fight,\u201d said Leptin. <\/p>\n
\u201cIreland has the next EU presidency and I hope Ireland will take this fight forward.\u201d <\/p>\n
The ERC council has planned a two-day trip to Ireland to meet Minister for Science James Lawless, his Northern Ireland counterpart, Caoimhe Archibald, Taoiseach Miche\u00e1l Martin and heads of the pharma, tech and food science industries. <\/p>\n
Ireland\u2019s council representative, Trinity College Dublin professor of biochemistry Luke O\u2019Neill, said it was an honour to host his fellow members at such a critical time for science. <\/p>\n
\u201cFor Europe to be competitive there needs to be increased funding for science, including for the ERC, which is Europe\u2019s most effective mechanism for funding fundamental research,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
Among O\u2019Neill\u2019s fellow members is Emmanuelle Charpentier, 2020 Nobel Prize winner for chemistry, whose work has produced game-changing gene therapies. <\/p>\n
But the council\u2019s expertise is wide-ranging and includes a historian, a geographer and a social anthropologist. Leptin said the ERC\u2019s approach to research is open and funding is not funnelled only to projects with proven commercial applications. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t ask that question with the purpose of directing funding. Nobody asked Maxwell and Hertz what it would take to invent the radio. <\/p>\n
\u201cThey were working on elementary particles and electromagnetic waste and then Marconi came along and said, oh we can make a radio out of that. <\/p>\n
\u201cI mean, rockets were invented before the beginning of the last century. All that jet propulsion, rockets, fuels \u2013 all that came from fundamental knowledge in materials, chemistry and physics. <\/p>\n
\u201cAI, where do people think that came up? That was not born in 2023. That was born in the middle of the last century with geeks and eggheads in their ivory towers. <\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s why. If we don\u2019t fund now then we will have nothing to invent and innovate and create wealth in five or 10 years\u2019 time.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Twenty-two of Europe\u2019s top scientists are due in Ireland on Tuesday to seek the Government\u2019s help to achieve…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":514107,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[5148,61,60,8872,43],"class_list":["post-514106","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-european-union","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-mario-draghi","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/514106","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=514106"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/514106\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/514107"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=514106"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=514106"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=514106"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}