European Science Foundation publishes four-year plan

The European Science Foundation has just published its plans for the next four years.

The ESF Plan 1998-2001 outlines future agendas for the Foundation’s scientific and science policy activities. The result of extensive discussions within the Foundation’s committees and its 62 member organisations (the major national science funding agencies), the Plan sets out a Science Agenda focused on eight emerging themes in fundamental science and the humanities.

The ESF Science Agenda’s themes are:

1. The Solid Earth
Key ESF issues: integrated European approach to sub-sea investigation; sediments and palaeo-indicators; time dependent model for European regional structure.
2. Environmental Processes
Key ESF issues: palaeo-climate studies using sediments and ice cores; biodiversity; micro-organisms in deep-sea sediments; cultural attitudes to the environment.
3. Resources and Sustainability
Key ESF issues: environmental economics and politics; transport; land-use and sustainability.
4. Atoms, Molecules and Complex Physical Systems
Key ESF issues: matter at extreme scales and conditions; novel materials and novel molecules; non-linear dynamic systems; advanced computing methods.
5. Brains and Cognitive Sciences
Key ESF issues: neural basis of cognitive functions; cognitive modelling and development of neuroinformatics.
6. Genomes and Genome Products
Key ESF issues: three-dimensional structures of molecular assemblies; proteomes; genes versus environment in survival and evolution.
7. Health Issues
Key ESF issues environment and health; ageing; variations in health expectancy.
8. Culture and the European Identity
Key ESF issues: comparative data as a basis for European research in social sciences; knowledge construction and transmission; role of the arts in society; ethics.

Over the coming years, the eight themes, which are intended to provide guidelines for the planning process within the ESF’s Standing Committees, will be updated, as necessary, in order to include the latest developments in research.

Introducing the Plan, ESF President, Sir Dai Rees, and the Foundation’s Secretary General, Professor Peter Fricker, stress the ESF’s commitment to maintaining and developing the ‘health’ of science. In an increasingly complex European science environment, the ESF has a unique role to play as a ‘science-push’ organisation, they state. It has access, through its Standing Committees and Member Organisations, to the expertise, resources and infrastructure to break new ground in the advancement of science and to build bridges between different disciplines.

In this way, they argue, "ESF’s ‘science-driven’ actions are complementary to those of other agencies, such as the European Commission, which primarily focus on the benefits to be obtained from science. ESF has an important role to play in spearheading scientific advances and in providing scientific strengths upon which other agencies’ actions can build."

In addition to the Science Agenda, the Plan also discusses the development of the Foundation’s operating mechanisms, such as its schemes of exploratory workshops, networks, programmes and conferences, and outlines future plans in the area of science policy. The Plan identifies a broad science policy ‘portfolio’ structured around four main themes:

• Science and Government
• Science Policy and Society
• Science and Public Opinion
• Science Management Issues.
  

Projects under consideration range from large facilities’ issues, the links between research and risk finance, conditions for younger scientists in Europe, to bioethics and ethics in research.

The Plan’s medium-term financial forward-look reflects the tight financial constraints operating on many ESF member organisations. It foresees only very small increases in the ESF’s basic budget – less than 1% over the next three years. But in order to develop further its scientific activities, the Foundation plans to strengthen its efforts in looking for additional resources from external sources.

Ends

For further information contact :

Andrew Smith
Head of Communication and Information, ESF
+33 (0)3 88 76 71 32

Notes for editors:

1. The European Science Foundation is the European association of 62 major national funding agencies devoted to scientific research in 21 countries. The ESF assists its member organisations in two main ways: by bringing scientists together in its scientific programmes, networks, exploratory workshops and European research conferences, to work on topics of common concern, and through the joint study of issues of strategic importance in European science policy.

2. Copies of the ESF Plan 1998-2001 are available from the Communications Unit. An on-line version is available at www.esf.org/news

For further information contact: Andrew Smith

Category: Media Centre, Press Releases 1998