07. December 2004 Helmholtz Head Office
Speech by the former President Professor Dr. Walter Kröll of the Helmholtz Assciation at the 2003 Annual General Assembly in Brussels
Speech by the former President Professor Dr. Walter Kröll of the Helmholtz Assciation at the 2003 Annual General Assembly in Brussels.
I welcome you all most cordially to Brussels for the Annual General Assembly of theHelmholtz Association. To my knowledge we are the first major research organisation inEurope to come and hold our Annual General Assembly here. Why? Allow me to quoteRoman Herzog, the former Federal President of Germany. The Charlemagne Prize wasawarded to him in 1997 in recognition of his services for Europe; in his acceptance speech,he said: "For centuries now Europe has been a continent of freedom with a thirst forknowledge and a desire for discovery, with an enterprising nature and, above all, acreative will to act." By holding our Annual General Assembly in Brussels we commitourselves: to Europe and the qualities that Herzog mentioned; they are the driving forcebehind our actions. With our thirst for knowledge and our desire for discovery we want to playour part in shaping the European Research Area. Because it forms the basis and theprerequisit for the Lisbon Process. Lisbon aims to turn Europe into the most competitive andmost dynamic knowledge-based economic region in the world. We offer Europe much inorder to play an active part in achieving this goal … and we expect much
Dear Guests, I am delighted that you are all here today. Some of you know us well, othersperhaps not yet. And so I will briefly introduce the Helmholtz Association.
Who are we?
In short: we are 24,000 staff working in 15 national research centres whose mission is toengage in strategically-oriented top-rate research. Our scientists contribute to solving thegrand and pressing challenges which society, science and industry face.They work in sixfields: Energy, Earth and Environment, Health, Key Technologies, Structure of Matter,Transport and Space. In order to investigate the systems of great complexity in these fields,our scientists use high-performance large-scale facilities and scientific infrastructures andthey cooperate with national and international partners. Whether mobility or energy supplies,whether climate change or infectious diseases - our role is to address grand challenges bygreat efforts. This is why our strategy is to concentrate resources so that we can live up toour motto: achieving more together. This means engaging in cross-border partnerships andcreating strategic alliances: Alliances in which various and differing institutions take part atnational, European and international level. Because only if we address the grand challengesin this way will we be able to achieve breakthroughs at the outer limits of knowledge andbuild bridges between knowledge and innovative application
Three years ago we started a far-reaching reform process. Its goal is to improve ourperformance, to raise the quality, efficiency and competitiveness of our research. Ourscientists drew up strategic programmes in all six research fields to this end. Theseprogrammes were then reviewed by internationally distinguished experts in a competitionbasedprocess. They made recommendations on the financing and on the contentual focusof our programmes. Towards the end of this year, we reached a milestone in this reformprocess: with all our 30 programmes having been evaluated by more than 360 experts. Asfrom 2005, all Helmholtz research will be organised and financed in accordance with thissystem. That is our way of concentrating our energies and resources and of extending ourstrengths. This also enables us to position ourselves as an attractive and strong partner inthe national, European and international research landscape. You now know in brief whatdrives us
What do we contribute to the European Research Area?
First of all substantial resources. Above all the competence and creativity of the people whowork in our research centres. Plus an annual budget of more than 2 billion euros. And uniquelarge-scale facilities and the know-how needed to design and build such large facilities andinfrastructures for the international Science Community. Our partners also benefit from this
In our research field Structure of Matter alone, the large-scale facilities are used annually byaround 7000 scientists, more than half of them coming from abroad - from Europe andaround the world
In addition to our resources we bring our know-how for the development and themanagement of high-quality projects and experiments into many, in some cases majorEuropean research projects. The researchers from our centres, who will present theEuropean dimension of their work through typical examples today, will be able to describethis in more illustrative detail. It wasn't difficult to find these examples. Because the Europeancommitment is an integral part of Helmholtz research's strategic focus. The figures show this
The Helmholtz Centres are currently taking part in around 270 projects under the 6thResearch Framework Programme; more than 40 major projects are being coordinated byHelmholtz scientists. All in all, we have been able to raise around 170 million euros ofresearch funding from the framework programme
But it is not only our resources, know-how and active commitment that we bring to Europe.
We also contribute the experience which we have gained with our own reform process. In theHelmholtz Association we are currently experiencing first hand what can be gained whenresearch funding is strictly bound to the criterion of excellence and when the focus is onstrategically-oriented research: clarity of goals, efficiency, profile and visibility. And that - as Iunderstand it - is also the objective in Europe: it is about concentrating efforts and resourceson key fields in which, working together, outstanding achievements can be made.
So what do we expect from European research policy?
Above all that its funding instruments achieve just that goal: the best in Europe concentratetheir energies and resources in order to work together to successfully tackle the grandchallenges. Because only then will European research be able to perform its key role in theLisbon Process with success. There is cause to doubt whether the EU countries will reachtheir stated goal of raising public and private spending on research and development up to3% of the gross domestic product by 2010. However, the consequence of this must not be toabandon the goals of the Lisbon Process. Rather, the answer must be a greater effort toovercome the current difficulties on the part of all involved. This means that state andindustry must clearly increase their spending on research. But in addition we need suitableboundary conditions, funding instruments, procedures and organisational structures so thatthese resources can be put to more effective and efficient use
It is our conviction that to achieve this, research funding in Europe must concentrate onstrategically particularly important well selected areas and on projects which meet the strictcriteria of scientific excellence and innovative technology. Particular attention should begiven to regions that are characterised by the productive mixture of scientific-technologicalexpertise, dynamic entrepreneurs and venturesome financiers. Because, as experience hasshown, these often act as a seedbed for innovative technologies. Beyond that, the nextResearch Framework Programme should, as far as possible, continue the work of itspredecessor with simplified and more transparent procedures. A frequent shift in paradigmssquanders too many resources and drowns the European research community inadministrative work
Projects, instruments, programmes. That's the close-up picture. But what do we see whenwe look beyond?
What is our vision?
How is the continent actually developing, thecontinent that thirsts for knowledge, that desires discovery and that has a creative will to act?What do we see when we think about the European Research Area in 20 years' time?Let me outline the key elements of my vision. I see the world's Number 1 address forresearch: an area that attracts the best scientists, a place where outstanding people worktogether in a highly motivating research and innovation promoting climate. I see theresearching Europe as the lead partner in major international research projects and as thestrongest competitor in fields that are decisive for technological progress and innovation. It isthe region in which major problems of our modern societies are solved. Where solutionsdevelop for a feasible balance between ecology and economy, for the treatment of the majorand still unconquered diseases, for the sustainable energy supplies of the future, for mobilityand communication. In short: It is the place where the world's best, most competitive anddynamic research shapes our knowledge-based society. A society that founds its civilisationon knowledge, that feeds its culture from knowledge and that drives forward its industry withknowledge
In order to turn this vision into reality, in order to creatively shape the European ResearchArea, we need research strategies with a long-term orientation: for the major fields in whichEurope wants to play an outstanding role. All stakeholders, that is the member states, theEU, science and research, and industry, need to work together to draw up and implementthese strategies. It is decisive that they define common goals and that each of them commitsitself reliably to delivering its own specific contribution to achieve these goals
I know full well from my own personal experience that such a process of strategy-buildingcan succeed. A few years ago I was actively involved in the process of elaborating anambitious vision for European aeronautics research. Its title: Meeting society's needs andwinning global leadership. From this vision we developed a strategic Research Agenda. Inline with this agenda, national and European research now work hand-in-hand in order toposition themselves together successfully in the international competition. An exemplarymodel which in principle can be transferred to other key areas of European research, notonly in creatively shaping the process but also in setting the overriding goals
Hermann von Helmholtz, the man who gave our Association its name, once said: "The morethe individual researcher is compelled to narrow down his field of work, the more he feels theneed not to lose the context of the whole. From where else should he draw the energy andthe joy for his arduous work? If not from the conviction that he supplies a building brick forthe great unity of science in the service of the moral purposes of humanity." Old-fashionedwords from the 19th century. Indeed. But the meaning is still valid today. The HelmholtzAssociation wants to supply building bricks for the great unity of science in Europe. Meetingsociety's needs
It is the stakeholders who will decide the destiny of the European Research Area. Politics is avery important one among them. We are pleased and honoured by the fact that twoprominent representatives are here today and will address us: Dr. Janez Potočnik, the newResearch Commissioner, and Ulrich Kasparick, the Parliamentary State Secretary in theGerman Federal Ministry of Education and Research. After their speeches we will move onto concrete European research. Helmholtz scientists will present examples of their work. Andfinally we will confer the Erwin Schrödinger Prize on a research team from our centre inKarlsruhe. Science and politics, insight and influence: we need both. The intelligentcombination of them is a secret of success … for more than a hopefully interesting European evening.
