Czech Council for R&D proposes seven priority research themes
The Czech Council for Research and Development has published a proposal outlining seven scientific research topics that it believes the Czech government should prioritise and financially support. According to the proposal, the government should focus on financing research in sustainable development, molecular biology, power resources, materials, competitiveness in engineering, information society and security. The Council regards those issues as vital for the development of a competitive economy and the sustainable development of Czech society. Up to 25 per cent of the total government budget for science should be dedicated to financing these fields, states the report. The remaining money, explains the council, should be used to finance other research tasks, grant projects, and research necessary for the civil service, including research implemented by individual ministries. According to the Czech Deputy Prime Minister for the Economy, Martin Jahn, some CZK 16.5 billion (0.54 billion euro) has been allocated for science in this year's state budget. This sum is expected to gradually increase to around CZK 22 billion (0.72 billion euro) by 2007. As Mr Jahn explained, an increasing proportion of the state budget will be spent on applied research to the disadvantage of fundamental research in order to raise the ratio to the EU standard. The Council regrets the fact that although the total share of the budget used by the state to support research and development (R&D) is growing, it is not increasing in proportion to the country's GDP. At present, the Czech Republic spends less that 0.6 per cent of its GDP on research. This is despite the fact that the government considers research as a priority. Although the Czech Republic recently stated it would increase its share of research spending to 0.72 percent of GDP by 2007, Czech scientists consider one per cent of GDP as the optimal state support for science. If public and private funding is considered together, however, the Czech Republic allots almost 1.4 per cent of GDP to research, the second higher figure among the new EU Member States after Slovenia. The old Member States in comparison jointly earmark around 1.9 per cent of their GDP for science and research.
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