AE Bergen’s Ole Øvretveit speaking at Johns Hopkins University in Washington, DC. Photo credit: SARDARI.COM
AE-Bergen project manager Ole Øvretveit participated in the Science Diplomacy Summit, hosted at Johns Hopkins University in Washington, DC, on April 14–15, 2025. The event brought together approximately 1400 participants from a wide range of countries and sectors, including academia, diplomacy, and Indigenous communities. Several nations, such as France, Poland, and Austria, were represented at a high diplomatic level, highlighting the global relevance of Arctic science and cooperation.
Øvretveit contributed to the session “Polar Diplomacy: Arctic & Antarctic ” with a talk titled “Towards a New Era of Arctic Exceptionalism.” His presentation reflected on the legacy and uncertain future of Arctic cooperation in the face of growing geopolitical tensions and environmental urgency. What has long been referred to as Arctic exceptionalism—the ability to maintain collaboration across political divides—now appears increasingly at risk. The region is becoming polarized between a “Western Arctic” and a “Russian Arctic,” the latter more closely aligned with BRICS and non-Western powers. Meanwhile, China’s rapidly growing research presence and intensified U.S. interest in Greenland are further complicating the geopolitical landscape.
These emerging fractures pose a serious threat to science-informed decision-making and coordinated sustainability efforts in the Arctic. Øvretveit emphasized that while Arctic collaboration has never been perfect, with enduring challenges around cross-border research, Indigenous inclusion, and balancing development with environmental protection, the region has nonetheless stood out globally for its ability to foster consensus among diverse actors. At the core of this cooperation has been the Arctic Council, which remains the most important institutional platform for peaceful and knowledge-based governance in the region.
Looking ahead to the Fifth International Polar Year in 2032–33, Øvretveit called for renewed ambition and long-term investment in inclusive, ethical Arctic research—anchored in Indigenous leadership and societal relevance — to ensure that the next era of Arctic cooperation is more resilient, equitable, and sustainable.
The recent SAPEA report “One Health governance in the EU” defines the “One Health”-concept as an integrated approach to optimize the health of humans, animals, and ecosystems, emphasizing their interdependence – how it’s all connected. Nominated by Academia Europaea Bergen, parasitologist Lucy Robertson participated in the working group for the report.
Lucy Robertson, teaching at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences, and has been a member of the working group for the report SAPEA report “One Health governance in the EU”.
In this interview, Lucy Robertson explains many aspects both of the “One Health”-concept and of how the SAPEA report can advance the One Health thinking. The report addresses governance, operationalization, and evaluation of One Health policies, offering evidence-based recommendations for implementation.
– What do you see as the most important gains in adopting a “One Health” approach for society?
– It is clear to me that use of a One Health approach is essential for not only tackling disease in people (both infectious and non-infectious), but to ensure that we have a planet that is liveable for future generations. The unescapable fact that changes we make to our environment affects animal and human health, means that the approach of only addressing problems when they arise, and not realising that even mitigation of an apparently urgent problem may result in negative consequences, is being increasingly recognised as non-sustainable.
– Instead of the “detect problem then deal with problem” chain of events, we have the means to collaborate and consider the more strategic “anticipate problem then avoid problem” approach. This can only be good for society.
– In what ways did your background as a researcher contribute to your interest in the «One Health» concept?
– I am a parasitologist, and parasites are one of the pathogen groups that are often associated with zoonotic (animal-to-human) transmission. After my PhD, which focussed largely on intestinal parasites in school children in Panama, I continued my career in parasitology in a general hospital in Scotland with particular focus on Cryptosporidium, a parasite that is zoonotic and often transmitted via contamination of the environment, such as water and food.
– Moving to Norway, I began working in the Norwegian Veterinary College, but on the same sort of topics, but this time with more focus on the animal side. So, for many years I have been very much aware of the importance of being aware that animals-humans-environment are best considered not in silos, but as a whole system, in which one part affects, and is affected by, the other parts. More parasites and more research later, this is still clearly the way to go. It is the basis of the One Health concept, and my research and outlook has been very much rooted in this since the 1990s (at least a decade before the “Manhattan Principles” were published). I think that many parasitologists (and others) would also consider that their work had been ground in One Health, long before it became a written concept.
– What are the origins of the «One Health» concept?
– This is not a “new” idea at all. The German physician, Rudolf Virchow (1812-1902), is considered the founder of social medicine and veterinary pathology. He described the life cycle of the parasite Trichinella spiralis and later discovered that cooking meat before consumption was an effective mean to prevent infection. His insights are clearly within the scope of One Health, without that term having been used. In 1964, Calvin Schwabe introduced the term “One Medicine” in his book on veterinary medicine and human health.
– A meeting in the Rockefeller University in 2004 made concrete many of the One Health principles under which many had already been working without giving the concept a formal name. This meeting was largely generated by a series of outbreaks of different diseases (West Nile Virus, SARS, BSE (“mad cow disease”) that brought home that only be considering human health, domestic animal and wildlife health could a broader understanding of disease be achieved.
– Although the health of the environment was not mentioned directly here, many examples of, for example, climate change and biodiversity recognised the importance of the environment, the ecosystem in which we all live. Since then organisations such as FAO, WOAH, and WHO have collaborated, along with UNICEF, UNSCI, and the World Bank to provide strategic frameworks fin which the One Health concept can be applied at the ecosystem- animal-human interface.
– The first One Health congress was held in 2011 in Melbourne, Australia, and now it is a concept with which many are familiar. As with such concepts, the term is frequently misused, and many work within a One Health framework, without calling it that (just “business as usual”). It is on the shoulders of all these pioneers in One Health, with only a few mentioned here, that the SAPEA group began its work.
– The working group in this SAPEA report refined the definition of the One Health concept slightly. Can you take us through the process of working on the definition of “One Health”?
– The working group all were concerned with One Health, but all had different backgrounds and areas of expertise. We started from the One Health definition provided by the One Health High-Level Expert Panel (OHHLEP) in 2022. By going through it word by word and discussing how each of us understood it, we were able to pinpoint where we felt there were ambiguities. This was particularly regarding the word “environment” and “ecosystem”, whether they are in fact synonyms, or that one encompasses the other. We ended up by defining “environment” as being a component of an ecosystem, but neither an animal nor a person.
– In what ways does the One Health concept relate to pandemic prevention and preparedness?
– Pandemic prevention and preparedness is obviously an important example of the “anticipate problem then avoid problem” approach. Previously (and repeatedly) we have waited for the pandemic “problem” to arrive and then rushed around trying to arrive and mitigate its impact. By brining in a wide spectrum of relevant people to anticipate when, where, and how a pandemic “problem” might arise, we give ourselves the chance to avoid that problem even occurring or only occurring in a controllable way.
Lucy Robertson is a professor at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences, and has been a member of the working group for the report SAPEA report “One Health governance in the EU”.
– However, I would like to emphasise that although pandemic awareness is high in the minds of many, not least due to the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic just a few years ago, there is more to One Health than pandemic awareness and prevention. This is an extreme example that frightens everyone, but there are many other One Health issues that may still make an impact on many although being of a more insidious, and less dramatic, nature.
– The SAPEA report mentions that we might see a paradigm shift on the topic of “One Health”. Do you agree and if so, how is that expressed today?
– I agree that there is already a paradigm shift within the field of One Health, in that there is a lot more emphasis on interdisciplinarity and transdisciplinarity in many aspects of tackling problems. This effort to move away from “silo thinking” is of value. The concern is that this is only very superficial, and that some partners in any multidisciplinary project may be sidelined or their impact considered of less value due to entrenchment in values from specific specialist fields. However, I think that as positive outcomes become recognised as being, at least in part, due to a One Health perspective being used, there will be a shift towards a greater understanding of the importance of this approach.
– I think that the anthropocentric framing of One Health is going to be more difficult to overcome. We are all selfish, and it is very difficult for any of us not to feel that people are of greater value than all else. As it happens, in One Health, the costs and benefits of all within the ecosystem need consideration, and recognition of the interaction may enable us to see that all One Health issues will, of their very nature, consider human aspects too. Thus, it is not putting “trees before people” but realising that aspects of both impact and effect each other.
– Are there any of the recommendations in the SAPEA report “One Health governance in the European Union” you want to highlight?
– To encourage everyone to take the One Health approach seriously, it is important to prove the value. Thus, to me, even for One Health adherents, it is important that we are held up to scrutiny and formal monitoring and evaluation is included. Methods by which we can determine the contributions from different sectors in addressing problems from a One Health perspective are important. The “Checklist for One Health Epidemiological Reporting of Evidence” may sound very dull, but enables and promotes inclusion of expertise form diverse disciplines.
– Economic analyses also sound very dry, but demonstrating that a One Health approach is more profitable than a siloed approach is very simple to understand and is convincing, also for politicians. The report from SAPEA gives many concrete examples of this, which demonstrate how important it is to be able to provide such data so that the relevance and financial benefits from using a One Health approach to tackle different issues can be realised.
The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters has decided to award the Abel Prize 2025 to Professor Masaki Kashiwara at Research Institute for Mathematical Sciences (RIMS), Kyoto University, Japan, and Kyoto University Institute for Advanced Study (KUIAS), Kyoto University, Japan.
Masaki Kashiwara has during more than half a century in mathematics opened the door to a new mathematical field. He has built bridges and created tools. He has proven astonishing theorems with methods no one had imagined. He has been a true mathematical visionary.
Like Niels Henrik Abel (1802-1829) himself, Masaki Kashiwara (b.1947) showed excellence already when very young. He remembers his love of algebra being kindled at school by a problem called Tsurukamezan, about calculating the numbers of cranes and turtles, respectively, from knowing the total numbers of heads and legs. He loved being able to generalise a method to solve any problem. From there on he has continued to find new approaches and create new methods to solve mathematical problems throughout his astonishing mathematical life.
At the University of Tokyo, he first encountered his mentor Mikio Sato (1928–2023), by enrolling for his senior year seminar. Sato had founded a new field – algebraic analysis – and in 1970 Kashiwara completed his Master’s thesis under his supervision. This thesis established the foundations of D-Module Theory, a new basis for studying systems of linear differential equations with algebraic analysis, when Kashiwara was just 23. For the next 25 years this thesis remained only available in Japanese, but it continued to have such great impact and influence, that it was eventually translated to English.
Broad spectrum of mathematics
With his Master’s thesis as a starting point, Kashiwara continued his remarkable mathematical career with new and groundbreaking discoveries and solutions. His numerous achievements have exerted great influence on various fields of mathematics and contributed strongly to their development. Over the years many mathematicians have been inspired through Kashiwara’s ideas.
While still a graduate student, Kashiwara travelled to France with Sato and fellow mathematician Takahiro Kawai, where he met his lifelong collaborator, Pierre Schapira. After completing his Ph.D. at Kyoto University in 1974, Kashiwara was appointed Associate Professor at Nagoya University. In 1977 he went as a researcher to MIT, before returning to Japan in 1978, where he has remained ever since at the Research Institute for Mathematical Sciences (RIMS), Kyoto University. He became Professor Emeritus following his retirement in 2010 and has continued his research as Project Professor at RIMS. He has also served as Program-Specific Professor since 2019 at the Kyoto University Institute for Advanced Study (KUIAS), specially established as a hub for the world’s most advanced research.
Jens Braarvig (MAE) and Danuta Shanzer at the Uppsala Conference.
The Uppsala Conference and The General Assembly of the World Philology Union (WPU) at Uppsala University, December 2024, resulted in the signing of the “The Uppsala Declaration on the Preservation of Philology and the Study of Historical Languages”.
– For the board of the World Philology Union and for philological scholars gathered in Uppsala before Christmas, it is of vital importance to see the recognition and the working conditions for the philological disciplines brought back to the centre of humanistic studies, rather than being scaled down as we see in many universities today, says the president of the WPU, Professor Jens Braarvig (MAE).
To underline this urgency, “The Uppsala Declaration” points out, among other issues, that “philology, defined as the grammatical and literary study of the oral and written heritage of the world’s various languages, is the ultimate foundation of the humanities”.
The work to anchor “The Uppsala Declaration” is in its early stages and is expected to go through several phases, Amund Haave of the WPU board explains.
– The Assembly at Uppsala were signatories as an assembly, and by extension also as individuals. In the first phase, we’ll ask academic institutions to sign, and possibly in a second phase, we will ask for individuals to sign, Amund Haave adds.
WPU president Jens Braarvig has been driving force at the WPU since it was founded in 2021, working to bring back philology as a central discipline of humanistic studies.
– Looking at my own University in Oslo, we see that a proud philological tradition is now reduced to just a few subjects being studied. Now, only Greek, Latin and Old Norse is being studied from a philological perspective at University in Oslo. This reduction in the field of Philology is also seen internationally, Braarvig says.
We have to ask ourselves as a society if we want to have basic research on historic texts. If yes, we need to access the sources. When early texts in ancient and classical languages are the source, then the philological expertise is needed to interpret them, Braarvig adds.
Philology as intangible heritage
Amund Haave
In addition to their work with universities, and with Science Academies such as Academia Europaea, The World Philology Union is also working to give the discipline of philology recognition on the World Heritage List from UNESCO.
– A dichotomy is seen between intangible heritage and tangible heritage. Of course, great buildings and great architecture, or other forms of tangible heritage is important to honour. Still, intangible heritage is also important to the human experience. That’s why the WPU is working with UNESCO to recognize the discipline of philology as a central part of the intangible heritage of the world, Jens Braarvig says.
Founded in 2021
President of the WPU, Professor Jens Braarvig (MAE), at the Uppsala Conference.
The World Philology Union (WPU) was founded on the 2nd of December 2021 at the Norwegian Academy of Arts and Sciences in Oslo, as an international association which promotes the philological study of written cultural heritage from all regions of the world. It was established in coordination with the Union académique internationale (UAI), the umbrella organization of all academies of science worldwide, and the UNESCO-related Conseil international de la philosophie et des sciences humaines (CIPSH).
With the establishment of the WPU in 2021, comparative philology has also come more into the forefront of the discipline.
–For a long time, philologists were friends that did not communicate very much. As we’re now working to establish philology again, we will also try to strengthen comparative studies in philology, Braarvig says.
As evidenced by the Annual Report of the Academia Europaea Bergen Hub, 2024 was a highly active year for the Hub, with several lecture series, and a strong engagement in the research and innovation landscape of our region.
The hub continued it’s cooperation in lecture series at University of Bergen, such as the Horizon lecture series and the NTVA/Tekna/AE-Bergen lecture series.
In 2024, as in the previous year, our Hub’s had several activities focused on science and science diplomacy in the Arctic. We hosted a well-attended side event at Arctic Frontiers 2024 conference, titled “A New Arctic Energy Mix”, featuring leading experts on energy and the green transition. Through our ongoing Rethinking Arctic Collaboration project we have organised events at key European Arctic conferences, including the Arctic Circle in Berlin in May and at the Arctic Circle Assembly in Reykjavik in October, the latter featuring both a closed roundtable with key stakeholders and an open event. We also attended a workshop at Dartmouth College’s Institute of Arctic Studies, kicked off with a public event.
We encourage our members to bring forward suggestions and initiatives for Hub activities, which this year led to our partnership with Professor Jens Braarvig (MAE) in co-organising the Second Biennial Conference of the World Philology Union at Uppsala University from December 4th to 6th, 2024.
The first planet in another solar system was discovered in 1995 and raised existential questions: Are we alone? Could humans thrive on other planets? How can we detect life or assess habitability? In this recorded lecture, Professor Carina Persson, professor of astrophysics and head of Chalmers Exoplanet Group, provides an overview of the field, describe the current frontiers, and paint an outlook of the discoveries to come with better observational capacity.
The first planet in another solar system was discovered in 1995 and immediately raised existential questions: Are we alone? Could humans thrive on other planets? How can we detect life or assess habitability?
The first exoplanet, a planet that orbits another star than our sun, was seen from Earth as late as 1995 by Michel Mayor and Didier Queloz and earned them a shared Nobel Prize in Physics. Before their breakthrough, it was believed that all planets and systems would look like our own. But the first planet was an unexpected new type.
In the decades that followed, enormous efforts have been made to detect and characterize exoplanets with both dedicated space missions and ground-based facilities. Now almost 6000 exoplanets have been found, and the two most common types of planets have no counterparts in our own solar system. Further, no exoplanet system with similar architecture to our own has so far been detected.
This has led to a dramatic change of our understanding of planets and planetary systems: there is an enormous diversity of exoplanets and system architectures.
It is, however, extremely difficult to observe exoplanets: most often they are seen as faint dips in a star’s brightness as the planet passes in front. The smaller the planet the harder it is to document, and very few of those have been well characterized. There is still an observational bias so that the full diversity of exoplanets has not yet been explored and explained.
Future space missions and development of state-of-the-art spectrographs mounted on ground-based facilities promise new discoveries. There is hope that these will reveal the true breadth and variability among exoplanets. A fundamental challenge is investigations of planet atmospheres, which are key to inferring habitability and the search for extraterrestrial life.
In this talk, professor Carina Persson will provide an overview of the field, describe the current frontiers, and paint an outlook of the discoveries to come with better observational capacity.
Warming nearly four times faster than the global average, the Arctic stands as both a warning and a roadmap for addressing the interconnected crises of climate change, biodiversity loss, and geopolitical tensions. Rather than just to reflect on these challenges, we try to chart a way forward for collaboration, innovation, and equitable governance in the Arctic, project director Ole Øvretveit said in his introduction at the Arctic Frontiers event co-hosted by Academia Europaea Bergen.
The event was hosted under the UArctic-funded project, Rethinking Arctic Collaboration, led by a consortium of institutions, including Academia Europaea Bergen, the University of Bergen, the Alfred Wegener Institute, Nord University, and Dartmouth College, among others. The project’s mission is clear: to understand the current state of Arctic research and science diplomacy while facilitating new frameworks for sustainable, ethical, and impactful collaborations.
Historically, the Arctic has benefited from international cooperation frameworks, such as the Arctic Council, fostering collaboration in research and governance. However, recent geopolitical events, including Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine and growing global geopolitical tensions, have disrupted key activities in Arctic scientific diplomacy and collaboration. As we approach the Fifth International Polar Year (IPY5) in 2032–33, we urgently need to rethink and frame the future of polar science cooperation and diplomacy to address global challenges with the most effective, impactful, and equitable ethical research collaborations for our planet.
What might future challenges, stakes, and key strategic pathways toward future Arctic science diplomacy be?
How do we safeguard the integrity of knowledge production informing Arctic policy and diplomacy?
How do we embed equitable and ethical engagement in Arctic science diplomacy to increase its effectiveness in informing and shaping global policy?
Panelists are Volker Rachold, Head of the German Arctic Office, Miguel Roncero, International Relations Officer at the European Commission, Melody Brown Burkins, Director Institute of Arctic Studies at Dartmouth, Ole Øvretveit, Project Manager at Academia Europaea Bergen, Anders Oskal, Secretary General of the Association of World Reindeer Herders and Jenny Baseman, consultant.
A recording of the panel discussion at Dartmouth College, November 18th 2024,
The geopolitical landscape of the Arctic has shifted dramatically following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, which paused over 25 years of traditional Arctic Council-informed and -guided cooperation with Arctic Indigenous Peoples, Arctic Nations, and Observer States. This break in Arctic diplomacy, particularly the cessation of scientific cooperation, raises crucial questions about the future of Arctic collaboration on challenges facing the Arctic and the planet. In light of this, our project seeks to present a series of informed scenarios that may help guide Arctic diplomacy and cooperation as we look toward 2032, a year that will also mark the 5th International Polar Year (IPY-5).
Panelists
Ole Øvretveit, Manager & Researcher of Arctic Science Diplomacy Project, University of Bergen & Academia Europaea Bergen, Norway
Volker Rachold, Head of the German Arctic Office, Alfred Wegener Institute (AWI), Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research, Germany
Heather Exner-Poirot, Director of Energy, Natural Resources and Environment at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute; Special Advisor to the Business Council of Canada; Research Advisor to the Indigenous Resource Network, Canada
Matthias Kaiser, Professor Emeritus at the Center for the Study of the Sciences and Humanities (SVT) at the University of Bergen; International Science Council Fellow, Norway
Jenny Baeseman, Arctic and polar consultant; former Executive Director of the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR); former Director of the Climate and the Cryosphere Project (CliC), USA
Moderated by Melody Brown Burkins, Director, Institute of Arctic Studies, Dickey Center, Dartmouth
The future of Arctic collaboration is at a crossroads. As we look toward 2032 and beyond, it is essential to engage in forward-thinking discussions that go beyond immediate challenges and envision what Arctic diplomacy could become. This was the backdrop for a panel discussion at the Arctic Circle Assembly in Reykjavík, October 2024, available as a recording above.
The event was Co-organized by Academia Europaea Bergen, and moderated by Ole Øvretveit, Manager & Researcher of the Arctic Science Diplomacy Project, University of Bergen & Academia Europaea Bergen. In the panel were Melody Brown Burkins of the Institute of Arctic Studies, Dartmouth College, Lise Øvreås, president of The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters, Volker Rachold of the German Arctic Office, Alfred Wegener-Institute (AWI), Gunn-Britt Retter, Arctic & Environmental Unit, Saami Council and Henry Burgess, Head of the NERC Arctic Office, British Antarctic Survey; President, International Arctic Science Committee (IASC).
In her introduction, Melody Brown Burkins described how the Arctic Science Diplomacy Project is a group with very diverse perspective, with several group members part of the Arctic Circle Assembly panel. Furthermore, she emphasized how this group will focus less on the immediate future of Arctic Science Diplomacy, but rather look ahead to possible scenarios in the build-up to the 5th International Polar Year 2032-2033.
In the following conversation, a range of topics relating to the future om Arctic Science Diplomacy are discussed.
Eystein Jansen, Academic Director of Academia Europaea Bergen and ERC Vice-President, delivered a keynote address at the annual conference of Nordic University Rectors in Brussels on September 23, 2024.
The last few weeks have been positive for the ERC and its mission, especially if the signals we’ve received translate into policies and funding decisions. I am particularly thinking of Mario Draghi’s comprehensive report on European competitiveness and the mandate given by Commission President von der Leyen to the newly appointed Commissioner for Research, Ekaterina Zaharieva. I also see encouraging signs from the work of the Heitor Group, which is shaping the next Framework Programme, FP10, set to be released on October 16. These developments offer a strong foundation to reinvigorate our efforts for excellence in research and to enhance the European Research Area.
Eystein Jansen, Academic Director of Academia Europaea Bergen and ERC Vice-President, delivered a keynote address at the annual conference of Nordic University Rectors in Brussels on September 23, 2024. Photo: Dag Rune Olsen
Eystein Jansen, Academic Director of Academia Europaea Bergen and ERC Vice-President, delivered a keynote address at the annual conference of Nordic University Rectors in Brussels on September 23, 2024.
The last few weeks have been positive for the ERC and its mission, especially if the signals we’ve received translate into policies and funding decisions. I am particularly thinking of Mario Draghi’s comprehensive report on European competitiveness and the mandate given by Commission President von der Leyen to the newly appointed Commissioner for Research, Ekaterina Zaharieva. I also see encouraging signs from the work of the Heitor Group, which is shaping the next Framework Programme, FP10, set to be released on October 16. These developments offer a strong foundation to reinvigorate our efforts for excellence in research and to enhance the European Research Area.
Mario Draghi’s wide-ranging report on European competitiveness, issued two weeks ago, paints a critical picture of Europe’s current ability to harness talent, drive innovation, and translate research into breakthrough technologies. According to Draghi, the EU-funded research system is too top-down and bureaucratic. He advocates for more ERC-style frontier research, led by independent scientific bodies, and calls for greater investment in this area.
The Draghi report highlights: “The European Research Council (ERC) has been crucial to the competitiveness of European science, but many promising proposals remain unfunded due to a lack of financial resources.” The report recommends doubling support for fundamental research through the ERC, significantly increasing the number of grant recipients without compromising the quality of funding.
In fact, the ERC could currently fund 40% more outstanding projects without diminishing quality or excellence—if budget allocations were increased. Furthermore, the purchasing power of our grants needs to be restored to 2009 levels, when they were last adjusted, 15 years ago.
On October 16, Manuel Heitor will release his report on the next Framework Programme. From what I have gathered, it will emphasize many of the same concerns raised in the Draghi report, while providing more detailed advice for FP10. It will stress the importance of bottom-up frontier and breakthrough research, led by independent, scientist-driven bodies, with a stronger focus on Marie Curie Actions.
Both reports praise the ERC, underscoring the importance of organizational independence and leadership by prominent scientists for these initiatives to succeed.
Guarantees of a “fifth freedom”
In her mandate to the new Commissioner for Research, Innovation, and Startups, Commission President von der Leyen emphasized:
“You will create conditions for researchers and innovators to thrive, focusing on groundbreaking fundamental research and disruptive innovation, especially in strategic fields, and on scientific excellence. You will work to expand the European Innovation Council (EIC) and the European Research Council (ERC).”
“You will propose a European Research Area Act to guarantee a ‘fifth freedom’—the free movement of researchers, scientific knowledge, and technology. The aim is to reduce the fragmentation of research and anchor innovation and research into the single market.”
These are hopeful messages!
We are living through unprecedented times. Even before the terrible events unfolding in the Middle East and Ukraine, people were already describing the global situation as a “polycrisis”—a scenario in which interconnected crises create compounded, more severe impacts than individual crises alone. Universities, as enduring institutions, face a unique challenge in these times.
Excellence remains a guiding principle. It would be regrettable if the EU Framework Programmes abandoned the “principle of excellence.” Some believe universities should focus only on certain areas, but I personally deplore such narrow thinking. The fact that the ERC supports all academic research areas is a strength worth protecting. Universities are not called “universities” because they are monocultures.
The ERC Scientific Council remains convinced that the ERC’s mission is more relevant than ever. Focusing too much on short-term results risks undermining future innovation, and our brightest talents will not settle for merely imitating others. It’s crucial to remember that the ERC supports not only scientific inquiry but also engineering across several of its panels. To lead in new and emerging areas of science, we must allow our best researchers the freedom to exercise their creativity.
The ERC was founded for this very reason.
ERC-funded researchers have received prestigious awards, including 14 Nobel Prizes, and have contributed to EU goals such as the green and digital transitions. They’ve made breakthroughs in critical technologies like artificial intelligence and quantum information, and 40% of ERC projects have resulted in patents, with around 400 ERC-funded researchers founding startups. ERC projects also lead to a higher rate of patents per euro invested than other targeted elements of the Framework Programmes.
We do care deeply about the impact of the research we fund, and granting researchers the freedom to explore is the best way to maximize that impact. ERC researchers have also trained the next generation of scientists, employing over 100,000 researchers, mainly PhD candidates and postdocs, in their teams.
If we look at the most significant scientific publications (the top 1% most-cited), the EU world share is 18% compared to 23% for China and 27% for the US. When we break this down by scientific field we see that the EU leads in only two of twenty of these fields, namely history and biology.
In most fields either the US or China has a clear lead over the EU, including in enabling and strategic technologies, information and communication technologies, biomedical research and earth and environmental sciences.
And if we look at new and emerging fields, the US and China have an even bigger lead.
Insufficient to meet the full potential
The ERC’s current budget of €2 billion annually is insufficient to meet its full potential. For the ERC to truly have systemic effects throughout Europe, it was estimated in 2003 that its budget would need to be 5% of national research agencies’ budgets—equivalent to €5 billion today. This remains true.
The final message in our statement on FP10 is that the ERC’s independence is critical to its success. The ERC’s ability to determine how it runs its calls and manages grants must be protected. Unfortunately, this independence is under pressure, as streamlined processes threaten to undermine it. We need to ensure the ERC’s autonomy is preserved in FP10.
The selection process is the heart of the ERC’s excellence, and it must remain of the highest quality. We need over 1,000 high-level scientists annually for our evaluation panels, with an additional 6,000 remote reviewers. Our simple, tailored procedures provide the necessary flexibility, and this should not be hampered by standardized processes across the EU’s entire research framework.
Finally, I urge you—Nordic Rectors and university leaders—to support a joint Nordic initiative at the government level, in alignment with the Draghi and Heitor reports. A strong, united Nordic voice will send a powerful signal and help create momentum in the right direction. Europe needs a concerted effort to strengthen its research base, support excellence, and reduce bureaucracy.
Let’s work together to ensure that Europe’s researchers are supported in a way that allows original talent to thrive.
