Citizens, sustainabiIity, competitiveness

Herbert Allgeier, the JRC's new Director General, has watched the institution now under his care adapt progressively to a far broader role than the one it was initially given. Maybe that role is in some respects too broad. In this interview given to RTD Info. Mr Allgeier explains that the Centre's strategy will be to refocus its work to support European Union policies. Its three watchwords are serving the citizen, enhancing sustainability and underpinning competitiveness.

RTD Info: Why do you think that the time has came to refocus the JRC's strategy?

Herbert Allgeier: I feel it is important to clarify the JRC's mission. Why do we have Commission officials running a research establishment? To answer this question, we have done some hard collective thinking and come forward with the statement that the JRC's mission is to support the conception, implementation and monitoring of EU policies. If that is not our role, then we are not needed.

Why do EU policy-makers need their own research centre?

We are living in a time when the speed of change is by and large dictated by scientific and technological development. It changes the way we live, the way we work, the way we communicate. Policy-makers have constantly to strike a balance for the benefit of our society as a whole between the interests of the individual, sustainable development and the competitiveness of our industry. They need a source of independent expertise to support them. They cannot rely exclusively on lobbies, or consultants, or even on national laboratories, because different Member States have different interests too. And the Amsterdam Treaty has extended the EU's regulatory competence in many areas - in the environment, energy, consumer protection, international trade and telecoms - making this support all the more necessary. Our strength is that we are a Commission service, we have a dynamic relationship with those who are thinking about the future of Europe. We share their concerns and thinking and we understand the political agenda.

Could you give an example?

In these days more than ever, we have a role right through the life of a policy. In its conception, our mission is to alert decision-makers to challenges and opportunities, and help them to map out policies ahead of time. As regards implementation, let us look at the directive liberalising trade in dangerous chemicals. This requires a procedure, which must be accepted by all Member States, for identifying these chemicals, verifying what industry says, deciding whether additional labelling is necessary and so on. The body that does this must be independent, and its work must be carried out confidentially because of the competitive environment. By undertaking this work, the JRC can help ensure that the internal market works for these products. It's not only a question of the JRC's competence, but also of the credibility of the process.

Serving the citizen is one of the JRC's priorities. Could you explain what this means in practice?

A case in point: we are deeply involved in "mad cow" research. We are developing reference methods, verifying ways of determining whether individual animals are infected, and testing ways of making feedstuffs safely, so that the internal market can function as it should and the consumer is protected. In this way the JRC is able to use its expertise in measurements and testing in the service of EU policy making.

What does this policy-driven approach mean for the JRC's taking part in the Fifth Framework Programme?

Our three objectives - service to the citizen, enhancing sustainability, and underpinning the open market and European competitiveness - give us clear selection criteria for what wt do and what we don't do. For every package of work that we do, we have to be clear what problem it is addressing, what policy it is supporting, and who needs the knowledge we are acquiring.

For several years, the JRC also tried to open its activities towards competitive RTD services delivered on the market. Will this openness be maintained?

Competition gives us a motivation, and a scale against which to measure ourselves. So the concept of competitive actions developed under the Fourth Framework Programme, and the requirement for us to earn 15% of our income from external sources, is helpful. But making money cannot be the objective of an EU-run research establishment. A purely commercial approach would not be consistent with our mission, whereas a reasonable Ievel of competitive activity enables us to check relevance and cost effectiveness and helps to keep us close to other research centres and industry. In fact, we have suffered some harm as a result of the invitation to take part in certain competitive activities under the Fourth Framework Programme, because research establishments tend to see us as competing for the same pot of money. We now have to convince them that our expertise is complementary to theirs, and that we can add value to joint projects aimed at policy support.

In February, the Council of Ministers proposed a reduction in the JRC's budget to ECU 700 million over five years. Commissioner Cresson said that the JRC couldn't work with that money.

I think that the Council's common position sends the wrong political signal. At a time when we in Europe want to secure high-quality employment, when we are conscious that we live in a knowledge society, it does not make sense to reduce research. In comparison, Japanese law requires a doubling of public investment in research over the next 10 years, and similar trends are occuring in the US. So much for the Framework Programme in general. As for the JRC, the implications of a major budget cut, such as envisaged by the Council, are more serious and even critical. We at the JRC are dealing with costly scientific installations and facilities: ultra clean laboratories, reactors, a microwave signature lab, and so on. At the same time we are facing increased demands in new areas such as consumer protection. As we go through the process of building up customer-contractor relationships requested by the Member States, I think that the demands made of the JRC can only grow, not shrink. And we must be more selective in the work we take on. One key way in which we can target our resources better is to transfer the cost of routine service activities to other European budgets. We have for instance developed on-site laboratories at Cap la Hague and Sellafield which should be paid for entirely out of other budgets, not the research budget. And the costs of our work on controlling fraud over agricultural set-aside should be borne by the common agricultural policy.

Do you see any other new roles for the JRC?

I see a particular role in promoting technology transfer in areas where market forces do not function, for instance in regional development Because the solution is not always to imitate the richest region using the same technologies. The JRC should be supporting less favoured regions by providing regional policy-makers with new ideas and our proven understanding of sustainable development for regions. We should be looking not only at technology but also at issues such as legal and fiscal instruments and standardisation. I want to mainstream this approach, piloted by our institute for prospective technological studies at Seville, which I call "technical economic intelligence", and make it the culture of the whole JRC.