New Euro body to match-make researchers and funders
player in life sciences by coordinating interaction between
researchers and funders, and may facilitate more research in the
area of food and health.
Called EuroBioFund, the initiative comes from the European Science Foundation, and is supported by the European Commission.
The foundation describes life sciences as "research fields that have a direct impact on the quality of our health, food and environment, including pharmaceuticals, genetics, systems biology and biotechnology".
It said that now, in the post-genomic era, life sciences are having more of an impact on our lives that ever before and developments are taking place throughout the world.
"Moving toward a more coordinated approach to R & D investment in the life sciences is a challenging but necessary step if Europe is to remain an important global player in life sciences and biotechnology research," said Wouter Spek, director of EuroBioFund.
News of the new body comes just weeks after a report from the Confederation of the Food and Drink Industries of the European Union (CIAA) painted a grim picture of R&D in Europe's agriculture, food and biotechnology sectors, and called on the EU to double the funds dedicated to it from its industry coffers, from 5.5 per cent to 11 per cent. "EU R&D funds should be used to support food research that is health-, quality- and safety-related as well as process-oriented with a view to generating high value-added products or processes aimed at better addressing consumer needs," the CIAA stated earlier this month.At present, R & D investment is split between funding bodies across Europe, and EuroBioFund, as a platform for more coordinated strategy for planning and investment strategy, is only one of three ways in which the European Science Foundation aims to simplify the situation.
The others are EuroBioGenerator, which is to help organise research communities and facilitate bottom-up generation of research programmes of European scale and scope; and EuroBioAccess, which will help develop joint investments and funding of life sciences research.
The first annual EuroBioForum conference is planned for 14-15 December in Helsinki, bringing together research groups presenting proposals with funding bodies.
