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2020 | Book

Introduction Read chapter Read first chapter

European Union Research Policy

Contested Origins

Author: Dr. Veera Mitzner

Publisher: Springer International Publishing

Book Series : Europe in Transition: The NYU European Studies Series

Part of: Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik" , Springer Professional "Wirtschaft"

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About this book

This book describes the emergence of research policy as a key competence of the European Union (EU). It shows how the European Community (EC, the predecessor of the EU), which initially had very limited legal competence in the field, progressively developed a solid policy framework presenting science and research as indispensable tools for European economic competitiveness and growth. In the late 20th century Western Europe, hungry for growth, concerned about the American technological lead, and keen to compete in the increasingly open international markets, the argument for a joint European effort in science and technology seemed plausible. However, the EC was building its new functions in an already crowded field of European research collaboration and in a shifting political context marked by austerity, national rivalries, new societal and environmental challenges, and emerging ambivalence about science. This book conveys the contested history of one of the EU’s most successful policies. It is a story of struggle and frustration but also of a great institutional and intellectual continuity. The ideational edifice for the EC/EU research policy that was put in place during the 1960s and 1970s years proved remarkably robust. Its durability enabled the rapid takeoff of the European Commission’s initiatives in the more favorable political atmosphere of the early 1980s and the subsequent expansion of the EU research funding instruments and programs that permanently transformed the European research landscape.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter
Chapter 1. Introduction
Abstract
The introduction chapter offers a brief overview of the research policy debate in the European Union and grounds the study in a wider temporal, thematic, and methodological framework. In addition, the chapter discusses the methodological approach of this study, reviews the existing literature on the topic, and outlines the key sources used in this book. It also presents the main findings, underlining the significance of ideational, institutional, and social factors as well as of transnational and interorganizational exchanges in European integration.
Veera Mitzner

Part I

Frontmatter
Chapter 2. Research for Growth: The Ideational Foundations of Research Policy in Postwar Europe
Abstract
This chapter traces the roots of a particular conception of the relations between science and the state, strongly driven by economic considerations, and draws attention to the central role that the OECD played in the early 1960s in the proliferation of this very much American idea in Western Europe. It describes how “research policy” was quickly embraced by European governments as a tool to increase economic growth and competitiveness, in part as a response to a perceived “technology gap” between the United States and Europe. The chapter introduces the ideational framework that determined the further debates and decisions on the European Community’s—and later the European Union’—activities in research.
Veera Mitzner
Chapter 3. A Common Research Policy? Launching the Debate
Abstract
This chapter shows how the newly created European Commission adopted the research policy ideas propagated by the OECD in the early 1960s. It demonstrates how the Commission and other advocates for European integration in the field of research used the pursuit of growth, the conviction of the economic benefits of science, and last but not least, the fears of European lag in sectors of high technology, as imperatives for new European Community action. The first Council meeting, bringing together the ministers responsible for research from all Community member states in 1967, demonstrated that, in principle, the member states were open to the prospect of broadening the EC’s activities in the field. The creation of the European Commission’s General Directorate for Research (DG Research), also in 1967, set the necessary institutional foundation for future overtures.
Veera Mitzner
Chapter 4. Euratom: The Troubled Forerunner of Community Research Policy
Abstract
This chapter illustrates how the problems in the existing European Community research activities in nuclear energy influenced the plans for a more comprehensive common approach to research. The European Atomic Energy Community (Euratom), whose difficulties exacerbated at the very moment when the first proposals for a general research policy were launched, served as a useful though highly problematic basis for the proposed new activities. These findings support a broader thesis of the book, which is the importance of institutional continuity in European integration.
Veera Mitzner

Part II

Frontmatter
Chapter 5. The Years of Questioning
Abstract
This chapter analyzes the shifting ideational context in which blueprints of the European Community’s research policy were developed. By the early 1970s, the ubiquitous objective of accumulating economic growth and the ability of science to contribute to that goal had come under attack. With the economic austerity, a new consciousness of the limits of growth, and the emergence of the environmental movement highlighting the negative externalities of economic expansion resulting from unsustainable use of natural resources, the promoters of a common research policy were forced to reconsider their earlier objectives and strategies. Yet, significant continunities prevailed and the policy framing conceptualizing research as an engine for growth proved durable.
Veera Mitzner
Chapter 6. COST: Distraction or Progress?
Abstract
This chapter examines how the political struggle over the British European Community membership transformed the Community’s plans of a common research policy into a rather unexpected arrangement: COST saw the daylight as a loose intergovernmental enterprise outside the EC’s structures. The story of COST shows how, in the EC, different policy issues easily became interlinked, and consequently, even powerful initiatives could be overrun by disputes in other sectors. At the same time, rather than failure, COST should be seen as an excellent showcase for the flexibility, variety, and innovativeness of European integration.
Veera Mitzner
Chapter 7. Contrasting Visions and Continuing Struggle
Abstract
This chapter addresses the European Community’s involvement in the creation of the European Science Foundation (ESF), an independent and nongovernmental European institution devoted to fundamental research, and another disappointment for the promoters of an EC-centric vision for European research collaboration. While proving that the EC had become a European science policy actor to be reckoned with, the struggle over the Community’s status in the foundation demonstrated that for its political initiatives to succeed, the EC needed support not only from the national governments but also from those whom the political decisions would fundamentally concern: researchers and their representatives and supporters.
Veera Mitzner

Part III

Frontmatter
Chapter 8. The Return of the Gap
Abstract
This chapter analyzes the ideational and political framework of the early 1980s, characterized by the new problems of European economies, the accelerating technological change spearheaded by the IT-revolution, and the supposed lead of Europe’s two main economic competitors, the United States and Japan, which resurfaced the old worries about a “technology gap.” In this context, the framing of research policy narrowed down to even more exclusively focus on competitiveness, while developing innovation policies and national systems of innovation, became a major political concern. All these trends were reflected in the EC’s proposals and debates on research put forward at the beginning of the decade.
Veera Mitzner
Chapter 9. Research Policy: A Trailblazer for Institutional Change
Abstract
The last empirical chapter explores the creation of the European Community’s new political agenda for research, which ultimately proved successful. Toward the late 1970s, the Commission grew frustrated with the slow progress with its initiatives and changed its strategy: the launch of the first Framework Program in 1984 as well as the first major Community technology programs (such as ESPRIT) was made in a close consultation with the industry as well as the research and innovation community. Crucially, the Brussels institution could now rely on a sturdy institutional and ideational setting. By the 1980s, an “epistemic community” of national and independent experts and the Commission officials had emerged through regular meetings in various Community committees and working groups. This community shared a robust set of assumptions and beliefs that in a political context more favorable for deepening European integration could be used for drafting new initiatives.
Veera Mitzner
Chapter 10. Conclusion and Further Thoughts
Abstract
The conclusion chapter not only summarizes the main results of the research conducted for this book but also connects the events and discussions between the 1960s and 1980s to later political developments. It shows striking ideational and institutional continuity and reveals a substantial character of European integration: by relying on powerful political framings and discourses, as well as on sturdy institutions, the European Community/Union was able to move into areas that were not sanctioned by the treaties. The chapter further argues that to stay relevant, the EU research policy must be capable of breaking with the past and dramatically expand its mission to embrace the social and environmental challenges of the twenty-first century. In fact, with the existential threat of climate change and other global challenges, and the urgent need for socio-technological transformation at scale, opportunities and imperatives for European level activity in research might be greater than ever.
Veera Mitzner
Metadata
Title
European Union Research Policy
Author
Dr. Veera Mitzner
Copyright Year
2020
Electronic ISBN
978-3-030-41395-8
Print ISBN
978-3-030-41394-1
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-41395-8

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