As an American who has been engaged in technology policy for over four decades, Rob Atkinson would like to thank the EU for its Framework R&D programmes. As he explains in a column for Science | Business, by focusing on basic research at universities and social policy-oriented research missions, the EU is helping make progress in a wide array of areas that could benefit him and much of the rest of the world.
But if the EU really wants to help itself, rather than the world at large, it should be crafting a different kind of programme. It should be focused instead on supporting technological innovation to boost EU productivity and international competitiveness, especially against the Chinese technological juggernaut. And most of that research should be done in partnership with industry, especially large companies.
Missions are a small but controversial part of the current EU programme, Horizon Europe. The idea is simple enough: set a few, politically popular targets at which researchers can aim for EU funding. They are modeled on the US Apollo mission to the moon, and were promoted most prominently by Mariana Mazzucato, an innovation professor at University College London.
But the idea is based on a fundamental misreading of US R&D history. To be sure, NASA research enabled an array of commercial innovations; but dollar-for-dollar, sending a man to the moon was far from the most effective use of funds. The NASA mission spurred innovation because going to the moon—actually, beating the Soviets—provided motivation for spending tens of billions of dollars. But spending that money directly on technology innovation related to economic growth and competitiveness would have been much more efficient and effective.
Read the column.
