EU Research Ministers, meeting in a video conference on Tuesday 7 April, gave their support to a priority action plan drawn up by the Commission and the Member States over the last two weeks (see EUROPE 12462/8).
This plan, consisting of a series of ten measures to be implemented rapidly, should make it possible to coordinate Member States’ research and innovation policies.
“The first step will be to strengthen and develop existing initiatives at national, international and European level”, said German Federal Minister of Education and Research, Anja Karliczek, speaking from Berlin a few minutes before the ministerial meeting.
Among other “concrete steps” to come, Mrs Karliczek had mentioned the creation of a working party of experts appointed by the Member States and the Commission to advise governments. The forthcoming creation of this working party was confirmed by the Commissioner for Innovation and Youth, Mariya Gabriel, who also took part in the videoconference.
More coordination and resources. “Today’s discussions prove that we are all determined to coordinate our actions aimed at optimizing the conditions in which our scientists work”, the Croatian Minister of Research and Education, Blaženka Divjak, who chaired the meeting, told the press.
The European Ministers welcomed, by way of interposed screens, the idea of allowing synergy between all available Community programmes and funds. They also expressed support for private and public sector collaboration.
In addition, they have required additional investment for the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), which is responsible for vaccine development.
More exchange and transparency. In addition, the need to ensure that scientists are not confined to research work, but that they contribute to preventing the dissemination of false information was mentioned several times during the meeting.
Ministers agreed that it would be beneficial to increase the accessibility and transparency of scientific work and data. “And not just because we are in difficult times. This is a principle we should use in the future too”, the Croatian Minister elaborated.
Her German counterpart, for her part, said she had “high hopes for the EU's objective to develop a new virtual clinical trials network and to strengthen the exchange of data on coronavirus using the Open Science Cloud (EOSC)”.
Development of a vaccine. Commissioner Mariya Gabriel, finally, said at the end of the meeting that the EU should speed up its work on a vaccine against COVID-19, stressing that it normally takes two years to develop such a treatment.
“We will explore how we could better involve all Member States in clinical trials”, she said, adding that the new videoconference was “a step in the right direction to affirm European leadership” in this area. (Original version in French by Agathe Cherki)