International
European Science Foundation takes shape Its main task will be to promote fundamental research in West Europe by fostering closer scientific cooperation A European Science Foundation, a long time in coming, seems to be on the verge of becoming a reality. Preparations leading to the setting up of the organization have now been hammered out in Paris. Next May, representatives of the supporting bodies from 15 European countries plan to meet in Stockholm to discuss the first draft of its statute and to decide where it shall have its headquarters. The foundation is expected to come into being by 1975. The principal task of the new European Science Foundation (ESF) will be to promote fundamental research in western Europe by fostering closer cooperation and collaboration among research workers there. This will be done mainly by stimulating an exchange of ideas and information, by making it easier for researchers to move among the various countries, and by generally harmonizing the research programs and activities of ESF members. These members will consist of a large number of academies and research councils in the 15 cooperating
Walker: collective projects 8
C&ENOct. 22, 1973
countries—Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, West Germany, Greece, Ireland, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the U.K., and Yugoslavia. The member organizations won't be limited to one for each country. Denmark, Norway, and Sweden, for instance, each will have six societies within ESF; the U.K. will have seven. All told, there will be about 50 learned national bodies associated with the foundation, at least initially. Similar societies in other European countries may eventually elect to join. "We don't envisage ESF as becoming an executive body as such," comments Raymond (Henry) Walker, secretary of Britain's Science Research Council, who chaired the international working group leading to the recent Paris session. "We expect to harmonize activities rather than take executive action. We visualize ESF as providing a forum or a marketplace, so to speak, where scientists of the member organizations can exchange ideas and harmonize their efforts by exploring, for example, the possibility of undertaking collective projects." ESF eventually may develop to where it could make grants toward supporting collaborative programs, Mr. Walker thinks, though this is unlikely in its early stages. "The most important step that we have taken at this point," Mr. Walker says, "is the decision to set up a formal preparatory commission rather than continue as we had been doing pretty much on an ad hoc basis." This eightmember committee will be chaired by Dr. Hubert Curien, principal scientific adviser to the French government and, until recently, director general of France's National Center for Scientific Research. .It will meet frequently in coming months to draw up details of the new organization to prepare for the Stockholm meeting next summer. Initially, ESF probably will have an annual budget of about $600,000 to fund a small secretariat. Dues will be contributed by the members, probably on the basis of each country's gross national product. The president will be a prominent scientist elected for a set period. If, as now seems likely, ESF gets off the ground, it will have succeeded where the European Economic Community so far has failed. The need for EEC machinery to promote closer cooperation among science programs of the community members has been discussed for some time. A blueprint of
action was drawn up by the EEC commissioners in June 1972, largely at the instigation of Dr. Altiero Spinelli, who at that time was the commission member with special responsibility for industrial affairs and science. It suggested establishing three groups within EEC—a European Research and Development Council, a European Science Foundation, and a European Research and Development Agency (C&EN, July 10, 1972, page 20). And at their summit meeting in Paris just a year ago, the heads of state of the nine EEC countries stressed the need of defining and developing a common communitywide policy in science and technology. Earlier this year, Dr. Ralf Dahrendorf, Dr. Spinelli's successor, proposed broad guidelines for EEC to follow in areas of education, scientific information exchange, and research. Dr. Dahrendorf says he welcomes the emergence of the new ESF, which, he notes, fits in with EEC aims for research cooperation. Moreover, the foundation's member organizations will include several from eight EEC countries. (Organizations in Italy have expressed interest in joining but to date haven't committed themselves to do so.) ESF will embrace all branches of science, including health sciences, economics, and social sciences, and also the humanities. Its stress will be on advancement of knowledge through collaborative fundamental research. Study areas in which it may arrange such collaboration include geophysics of the oceans, epidemiology, physical chemical analytical methods, special strains of plant and animal cell cultures, and special facilities for millimeter-wave astronomy. ESF also will maintain close liaison with other international scientific bodies to help ensure that work is not duplicated.
Hoechst plans big spending abroad Farbwerke Hoechst's plans for a massive worldwide investment program during the coming 10 years (C&EN, Oct. 8, page 4) call for nearly half its total capital spending of about $800 million annually to be invested in projects outside West Germany. The program will center mainly around three broad sectors of the company's activities: dyes and pigments, synthetic fibers and their raw materi-
