CORDIS can help build ERA, say MEPs
CORDIS could support European research in three principal ways, according to Jerzy Buzek, MEP and rapporteur on the Seventh Framework Programme (FP7) for the European Parliament's Industry, Research and Energy (ITRE) Committee. CORDIS is the 'Community Research and Development Information Service', and since it moved from the European Commission's DG Enterprise to the EU Publications Office in 2004, it now belongs to all of the EU's institutions. It was in this context that an informal exchange of views involving several MEPs took place in the European Parliament on 19 April concerning CORDIS and FP7. 'We want you to feel that the services we provide for research and innovation are serving your citizens,' said Thomas L. Cranfield, Director-General of the Office for Official Publications of the European Communities, opening the debate. Mr Buzek spoke of a clear role for CORDIS in keeping all 25 Member States together and in the EU, thus combating brain drain; bridging related programmes, such as the research, competitiveness and innovation framework programmes (CIP) and the Structural Funds, and avoiding the fragmentation of research. He also emphasised the added value that CORDIS brings to the creation of the European Research Area (ERA). 'An important question is how to involve all 25 countries and beat competition all over the world,' said Mr Buzek. 'Work in CORDIS could help us to keep all 25 countries together.' Referring to the role of CORDIS in countering fragmentation, Mr Buzek spoke of the need to avoid the European Research Council (ERC) becoming separated from the rest of European research, and of the need to keep Joint Technology Initiatives in the fold. Kurt König, Head of the CORDIS unit at the Publications Office, responded to Mr Buzek's points positively, stating: 'If it were up to us, we would do more,' and adding: 'We are very open to the idea of bridge-building, for example between the CIP and the Seventh Framework Programme.' Mr König also explained that one of the ambitions for CORDIS is to rearrange access to the information that it publishes so that it corresponds to the logic of the user rather than that of a funding programme or a particular institutional structure. A joint question from Mr Buzek and Philippe Busquin, MEP and former Research Commissioner addressed the proposed European Institute of Technology (EIT). 'If the EIT comprises a virtual network, would synergy with CORDIS be possible?', they asked. Other questions from MEPs touched upon the opportunities for individuals to submit information to CORDIS, information for small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs), and information on national programmes. Mr Busquin emphasised the importance of having information on all of the EU Member States' national programmes in one place. Mr König was able to respond that CORDIS has national services for 34 European countries, as well as 33 regional services. A topic that provoked many comments was the publication of research results or more accurately, the dearth of publicly available research results. 'I was profoundly shocked when we took on CORDIS to find that there is no obligation to publish the results of publicly funded research,' said Mr Cranfield. Addressing MEPs directly, he said that now is perhaps the time, during the interinstitutional discussions on FP7, to be 'explicit', to ensure that researchers funded by the EU publish their results unless intellectual property issues are at stake, as is proposed forcefully in a study published recently by the Commission on open access.