A visit of Maria Douka with the lectures “Building and Implementing Research and Innovation Policy at Multinational level” and “Universities and Links with Industry”
On October 6th and 7th, 2014, Maria Douka, Programme Officer at the European Commission, gave two lectures at HSE Institute for Statistical Studies and Economics of Knowledge (ISSEK).
The topics of the lectures were “Building and Implementing Research and Innovation Policy at Multinational level” and “Universities and Links with Industry”.
The first speech was dedicated to the implementation of R&D and STI policies on multinational level. The guest speaker started outlining the essence of the European Framework Programmes for Research and Technological Development followed by the presentation of the concept of European Research Area (ERA) and the principles of Horizon 2020 – a new funding tool of the European Commission. M. Douka also introduced a comparative panorama of R&D policies of different EU countries.
Her lectures showed that research was a part of the Treaty of Rome (1957) giving a grounding in the European Economic Community but research funding at European level began only in 1984 with the introduction of Framework programme – a legal frame approved by the Parliament and the member states allowing the Commission to fund research activities. The aim of the programme was to establish collaboration and networking between researchers, to give them an opportunity to meet, to learn each other and learn to work together. Later with the emergence of the concept of knowledge based economy in the political and economic agenda of Europe the vision of research and its role began to change: research was in charge to reinforce the competitiveness of European economy. The latter in its turn provoked debate on the relevance of ‘blue sky science’.
Besides the debate on ‘curiosity-driven science’ vs. applied research in the EU there is also an ongoing dispute on communitarian and intergovernmental modes of governance rooted in the competition between the Commission and the member states. The problems relates not only to the division of competences, but also to funding issues. Besides community level funding, in order for the policy to be successful, research also requires substantial funding from individual states. However, at the moment there is a striking difference in research budgets between the old and new members of the EU. Among successful Commission initiatives the speaker mentioned the European Research Council, ERA-NETs and Marie Curie Actions.
The final part of M. Douka’s first lecture was devoted to Horizon 2020 – a research and innovation funding programme available for the years 2014-2020 with over €70 billion of funding. Horizon 2020 aims to create jobs, stipulate economic growth and Europe’s competitiveness by coupling research and innovation. Participants from Russia are also eligible to apply for the Programme.
During her second lecture “Universities and Links with Industry” (October 7th) Maria Douka addressed such issues as the role of universities in past and present as well as the concept of innovation in general.
As for the role of universities, it was argued that during the Medieval period of history universities served as a guarantee of societal values and knowledge preservation. During the Renaissance the center of interest in general and in universities in particular shifted towards the accomplishment of self-achievement and self-realization of human beings. With the industrial revolution universities were in charge to produce experts who should master the industrial revolution.
Nowadays universities are functioning in a market driven competitive environment which also shapes the vision of their role and functionality, e.g. WTO approaches education as tradable commodity, in a British paper entitled “A vision for Research” university appears as consultancy organization rather than an entity of curiosity driven research.
According to the speaker, other modern trends which influence the revision of the role of universities in society are digital revolution, reduction of public funding paralleled with the increasing regulatory requirements from government, massification and commercialization of education as well as creation of managerial culture in HEIs.
Abovementioned issues triggered among the participants a debate on whether education should be treated as a service and universities as enterprises and competitive industry.
The speaker completed the lecture presenting different concepts and typologies of innovation along with innovation chain and the so called ‘valley of death in innovation'.