Tibor Navracsics's exposé az the European Research Council, ERC conferenci in Budapest.

Allow me to begin by expressing my gratitude for having invited me to this conference whose topics, research, innovation and competitiveness in the European Union, are in many ways strongly related to the policies pursued by the government of Hungary. Before I begin, however, I would like to thank Dr. József Pálinkás in person, President of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, who has not only fully endorsed today’s event but has been investing infinite energy into one of the flagship initiatives of the Hungarian scientific world, the “Momentum Programme”. The vision of this programme is to help the best and brightest of our country continue their research in Hungary and support this with the necessary financial tools. With Dr. Pálinkás, we share the vision of creating an environment that is both inspirational and financially sustainable to keep the “new Hungarian Martians” in their homeland. I firmly believe that we can, once again, make Hungarian scientific innovations world-renowned.

As I will try to highlight to you in my exposé, fostering competitiveness is certainly not an exclusive task exclusively of the private sector or the academic sphere for that matter. Not only can an elected government promote innovation but also, a government, or rather good governance, can be a source and engine of competitiveness, setting the example to other sectors of the economy and society. It is with this broader understanding of the conference’s main theme that I would like to contribute to today’s discussion.

Dear Guests, The motto we gave to Hungary’s European presidency called for a “Strong Europe”. Much has been done in the past six months that we believe prove our sincere commitment and ability to act when needed. In my understanding, a stronger Europe is one that is more competitive than today’s, both in terms of its member states’ economy, society and public administration. Research and innovation are main driving forces behind an economically stronger, more competitive Europe, therefore research and development enjoys a specific attention in the programme of the Hungarian Presidency. Hungary welcomes also the efforts to create the Innovation Union, and believes that the European Institute of Innovation and Technology, hosted proudly by Budapest, will play a major role in this.

Numerous studies, which I believe you are all aware of, point to the challenge the European Union as a whole faces when compared with other global players in the field of innovation. The key findings of the 2011 Competitiveness Report, released by the European Commission, underline this concern: its first key finding draws our attention to the fact that if current trends continue unchanged, China will overtake the EU by as early as 2014 in terms of volume of research and development expenditure. Equally alarming is the piece of data revealing that the United States is still performing one third better than Europe in terms of research and development excellence. To quote the Commission’s warning: “Europe is losing ground as regards the exploitation of research results.”

Meanwhile, Europe is only slowly advancing towards its 3% research and development target. This shows that, in the words of Máire Geoghegan-Quinn, Commissionner for Research, Innovation and Science, that there exists an “innovation gap between where we are now and achieving the Innovation Union we need in Europe”.

The Hungarian position concerning the Common Strategic Framework for the European Research Area also explicitly states the challenges that lie ahead of us: “the Lisbon Strategy ambition was to reach research and development investment level of 3% of GDP. A decade later and we still have the same target in the framework of the Europe 2020 Strategy.” Quite obviously, there is good reason for today’s gathering: we either fundamentally reformulate our governments’ and the EU’s approach to scientific research and innovation policies or we will be doomed to observe more competitive global actors leave us behind in the short run. I definitely see the European Research Council as a guarantee and an effective tool in protecting us from the latter scenario – however, much remains to be done in order to regain European competitiveness, especially given the current global financial instability, seriously threatening European member-states’ economies.

Honourable Guests, Where and how does the Hungary fit into this picture? Scientific research is considered one of the most widely acknowledged talents of Hungarians. This is particularly true in the fields of natural, technical and medical sciences. Achievements of Hungarian science and technology are appreciated all over the world. Derec de Solla Price, professor at Columbia University, writes in the preface to the Hungarian edition of his book entitled Small Science – Great Science: “With regard both to absolute degree and per capita indices, it is absolutely clear that Hungary rightfully belongs to that group of countries which, based on its number of inhabitants, economy and industrial development, demonstrates a rather high level of development and a certain commitment, primarily in research of basic sciences. This is not that surprising, since there is an extraordinary mental capacity which made tiny Hungary into a great country of Nobel-Prize-winning scientists, a country of scientists whose abilities are unparalleled.” Based on this world-renowned tradition, Hungary supports excellence in general, and is of the opinion that this is the main factor that must underpin European research and research funding.

Focusing the attention to my government’s position: we firmly believe that research and innovation drive economic performance. In fact, this is not only a belief: the American Chamber of Commerce to the European Union wrote in its Recommendations for Closing Europe’s Innovation Gap that “a 0.1% increase in research and development boosts output per capita growth by 0.3-0.4%”. Clearly, economic competitiveness is directly linked with money injected into innovation policy initiatives.

But there is another side to this relation and this is exactly where the Ministry of Public Administration and Justice steps in: our conviction is that competitiveness has a broader meaning to it and good governance could just as much serve economic performance as specific innovation policies. This is why my government is dedicated to a complete, top-down reform of Hungary’s public administration, government structure and its every institution from the smallest townships to the central executive level. We have learned from the past eight years that austerity policies are doomed to failure in Hungary because essentially they conserve structures that are unsustainable and therefore reproduce systemic efficiency problems.

By remodelling our public administration entirely, we serve the purpose of building a new, more competitive institutional and executive framework. This will, in turn, help the economy in regaining its competitive edge, much of which has been lost since 2002, due to failed public policy initiatives with the sole aim of cutting costs. Our approach stems from an entirely different philosophy: we believe in lifting burdens, be them taxes or inefficient administrative requirements.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Simplifying institutions, administrative routines and procedures are what constitute my government’s approach to structural reforms. This is why we wholeheartedly welcomed the successful launch and the very promising initial results of the IDEAS Specific Programme run by the European Research Council. We did so because we believe that this is a major step on the way of simplification of research funding. We also acknowledge the administrative success of building up new, unconventional and fully operational structures in such a short time. The funding instruments provided by the European Research Council are not only facilitating the work of the most talented scientists in Europe on a competitive basis, but also provide a Europe-wide, truly science-based benchmark for scientific excellence in general and a solid framework for world class researchers wishing to pursue their careers in Europe. Hungary considers it important to continue the ERC approach with the ongoing and already approved practices. Hungary is convinced that ERC should be strengthened and should go on supporting frontier research in the future.

To cite just a few numbers and figures highlighting the European Research Council’s successful presence in promoting excellence in Hungary’s academic and scientific sector: currently there are altogether 21 ERC grants with Hungarian Host Institutions which were selected for funding, from which 12 were granted to Starting Grant applicants and 9 for Advanced Grant applicants. This altogether has mobilised close to 26 million Euros of Community funding for Hungarian research performing organisations. In addition to the 21 grants hosted by Hungarian institutions, 10 Hungarian nationals have hitherto applied successfully for the support of the European Research Council to conduct research in host institutions located in 6 different EU Member States.

Dear Guests, Ladies and Gentlemen, To round up my exposé, I would like to conclude with once again reasserting my government’s main understanding of the current global situation Europe and its member states are in. In our view, Europe either becomes more competitive or will lose its defining voice in the accelerated globalisation. Competitiveness may not be achieved without effective public policies in the field of innovation policy as well as public administration. A genuine interaction is required between the state and the competitive sectors. We have no time to waste: the European Commission’s research shows that “the percentage of European citizens that trust science and technology to improve their quality of life decreased over that last five years from 78% to 66%.”

Clearly, the European Research Council has a defining role in turning this trend around. Just as much as the ERC, however, member states and governments also have a task to redefine competitiveness, including the various aspects that I have tried to emphasise in my exposé.

It is with this spirit, ladies and gentlemen, that I would like to thank you once again for your kind invitation and attention and that I wish all of you a fruitful and forward-looking exchange of thoughts here in Budapest. Once again, on behalf of the government of Hungary, I would like to thank the organisers for their hard work and the Hungarian Academy of Sciences for hosting this world-class meeting. Thank you all!

(kormany.hu)