Portuguese minister stresses need for cooperation
In an interview with CORDIS News, Mariano Gago, the Portuguese Minister for Research, stressed the importance of cooperation, both between research actors and between researchers and society, for the success of European research policy. Minister Gago emphasised the importance of networking and of good quality dissemination of scientific information in order to address the gap between scientists and citizens. 'In our view, for achieving progress towards the European research area, one must rely on the national research organisations and the national agencies, and on their working together,' Minister Gago told CORDIS News. The minister stressed however that networking must be done on a voluntary basis. 'I don't think that a centralised networking of national programmes in Brussels could ever happen, or it would probably be very inefficient,' he said. Minister Gago would be keen to see national research councils and research agencies working together on a voluntary basis in new areas of research, thus creating new programmes. He added that the role for the Commission in such a scenario would be 'a very limited role, ensuring that there is open information and that everyone is able to know what is being proposed.' In the minister's view, the implementation of Article 169, a provision which allows a group of Member States to forge ahead with research projects alone, should be seen as 'networking the positive content of national programmes'. On 'science and society', Minister Gago expressed his personal satisfaction at the attention that this area is now receiving from each of the EU presidencies. 'I think it's a very good thing that all presidencies now tend to realise that that is a very important issue and that the initiatives on the area are to be taken,' he said. 'I hope during the Belgian presidency, not only in the Research council, but mainly in the European summit, that something can be achieved,' he added. Portugal itself has been very active in attempting to increase its citizens understanding of science, and has launched several innovative initiatives. Since 1997, the Portuguese government has been running 'science in the holidays for young people', which gives teenagers the opportunity to participate in training sessions in public and private laboratories, research centres and entities for the promotion of science and thus observe the reality of scientific research. A second initiative is 'astronomy in the summer', a campaign to increase awareness of the universe by giving the public the opportunity to observe the stars throughout Portugal's regions. Minister Gago conceded that taking initiatives on science and society at European level is a difficult task because so many areas are involved: research, dissemination of results, education and the media. 'The media is clearly a privileged way to disseminate information and specialised media, and news agencies on science and technology must exist at European level, but the problem is not solved yet, neither for new discoveries or normal science and technology work,' he continued. Minister Gago regrets the fact that it is often easier to receive information from America than a neighbouring European country, claiming that there is 'a problem inside Europe'. Opportunities for addressing the gulf between science and society come at times of scientific controversy, he said, when citizens are eager to understand what the problem is. 'The role of proximity, open doors, open days in laboratories, is going to become very important in the near future, in my view, essentially because the public is interested in meeting, in person, the people who can tell them the truth, and how they reach their conclusions,' Minister Gago concluded.
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Portugal