JRC needs complete overhaul, says independent panel
An independent high level panel charged with reviewing the workings of the European Commission's Joint Research Centre (JRC) is calling for major reforms to both the JRC's mission and organisation. Such reforms are crucial, it says, if the JRC is to provide a 'useful scientific contribution to the development of research and scientific expertise in Europe'. Current efforts by the JRC to improve its operations 'have not been sufficiently successful', it adds. The panel, chaired by Viscount Etienne Davignon was set up in January this year by the European Commissioner for Research, Mr Philippe Busquin. It has now published a report of its findings and recommendations in which it calls for major reforms to the JRC - and soon. Principally, the Panel recommends the JRC should be 'transformed into a body serving the Union which is responsive and accountable to all three of the institutions. ' This is necessary, it says, because of a need for scientific backing for policy and legislation and to respond to a crisis or unexpected new need. 'The Panel believes that if the JRC continues to be exclusively an instrument of the Commission its relations with the Member States and the Parliament will remain ambiguous,' it warns. Adopting this new approach would mean revising the JRC's mission and workplan to turn it into an instrument of the EU. 'The JRC should be given a remit that is related to what the Institutions say they need, not what the JRC thinks they need, as has been the case in the past,' the committee advises. Continuing this theme, it says the JRC must become integrated in the wider scientific community and should operate in an integrated, open fashion, making its results available to all the EU institutions. It should also develop reference and testing products. This way, it could play a key role in the helping to create a network of Europe's centres of excellence as envisaged in Commissioner Busquin's paper on a European Research Area (ERA). 'The JRC could embrace this role immediately as it has a budget to the end of 2002,' suggests the committee. It also recommends that part of the budget should be given over to support sub-contracting, while the JRC could put some services out to market testing as a means of benchmarking its performance. However, the Panel believes that radical reform of the JRC's budget is required for the future. In particular, it calls for a discussion to start before 2001, on the whether the JRC budget should remain within the Framework programme: 'which gives a coherence to everything done in Europe, or whether it can be given a completely separate budget....It should not take part in the shared-cost activities of the Framework programmes outside the nuclear sector, except when specifically requested.' The Panel is keen however, for the JRC to continue with its nuclear activities, which 'address a continuing and important need for the benefit of the Commission and the European Union as a whole.' In particular, it would like to see the JRC playing an increasingly active role in space research, nuclear safeguards and assisting the candidate countries in their nuclear activities. The JRC could also develop an integrated strategy to assist and play an important role in the enlargement process and improve its links with the European Safeguards Office in Luxembourg, suggests the panel. 'A clear organisational and management separation should be made between nuclear and non-nuclear activities to recognise that the challenges, opportunities and other problems facing the JRC in nuclear work are different from those in other areas.' In addition the Panel calls for a plan to address the issue of replacing and updating the JRC's skills base for future nuclear work 'as a matter of urgency'. The focus should be more customer-oriented, it continues: 'The JRC must know what its funding will be and what it is for, instead of the present situation where it knows what its funding is but has insufficient guidance about how to spend it.' In terms of organisation, the panel recommends the Brussels office take on a new responsibility, distinct from its current administrative functions, to implement the JRC's new role as an instrument of the EU. 'This will entail improving the communication and liaison with the institutions to ensure that required research or services are delivered in a timely and appropriate fashion,' says the panel. It also stresses the importance of encouraging mobility of researchers and continually updating skills, and suggests that personnel be given short term contracts 'to encourage a constant influx of new talent'. Finally, the panel recommends the Institute for prospective technological studies be given a new mandate and more focused mission. 'Its role should contribute essentially, to the generation of ideas and priorities for the EU's Framework programmes through assessment of developments and changes affecting science, technology and society in the short, medium and long term.....An immediate step towards refocusing the JRC as a Union body would be to give all the Institutions representation on the JRC's Board,' suggests the Panel. Such a major shift in emphasis could not be rushed through though. 'Mr Busquin doesn't find that idea so good. Because in fact the JRC already works for the Parliament and has external contractors. To change the JRC's board and make it a Union body would just make the administration even more complicated,' commented the Commissioner's spokesperson. Mr Busquin underlines this in a note containing his initial responses to the Panel s report. In this, the Commissioner also rejects the panel s suggestion to make the JRC an independent research institute with its own budget like other EU bodies and agencies. The Panel s ideas for major reforms to the JRC s board of administration are also excluded, although there will be some changes to the existing Board, encouraging it to play a greater role in facilitating more networking in the scientific community. Yet radical change at the JRC is certainly on the horizon. In recent press interviews Mr Busquin has indicated that he plans to follow the Panel's advice on bringing the JRC to focus more on core tasks and large scale strategic projects such as nuclear safety, the traceability of GMOs in the environment or testing for compliance with environmental requirements, such as reductions in carbon dioxide emissions. The Commission plans to publish its next major paper on research funding in the EU in October.