European scientific and technological collaboration after the 2nd Ministerial Meeting on Science

Recommendation 460 (1966)

Author(s):

Parliamentary Assembly

Origin

Assembly debate on 5th May 1966 (6th and 7th Sittings) (seeDoc. 2053, report of the Cultural and Scientific Committee). Text adopted by the Assembly on 5th May 1966 (7th Sitting).

The Assembly,

1. Having studied the working documents submitted to the 2nd Ministerial Meeting on Science, held at Paris, within the framework of OECD, on 12th and 13th January 1966 ;

2. Having taken note of the communiqué published at the close of that Ministerial Meeting, and of the report which Mr. Alain Peyrefitte, French Minister for Scientific Research and for Atomic and Space Questions, has presented to it in his capacity as Chairman of the Ministerial Meeting ;

3. Having examined the report prepared for it by its Cultural and Scientific Committee ;

4. Noting with anxiety that there has as yet been instituted no organ of permanent coordination responsible for harmonising and rationalising European collaboration in scientific and technological research ;

5. Considering that, in the field of scientific and technological collaboration, there already exist a certain number of European organisations and programmes ; but that these, having been instituted at different points of time and independently of one another, are not as yet organically linked together and so, for the moment, represent not a true European science policy but only the scattered elements of such a policy ;

6. Noting with anxiety the tendency for these various programmes and organisations to make mounting and unco-ordinated claims upon the financial, human and material resources of the European States ;

7. Convinced of the urgent need to coordinate these programmes and the activity of the organisations which already exist or which it is planned to set up, in order to utilise in the best possible way European scientific potential and to put a brake upon the steady draining away from this continent of its native talent and the fruits of its inventiveness ;

8. Noting that, despite the extremely useful work accomplished by the Science Ministers of the OECD member countries within the framework of a series of Ministerial Meetings, the said meetings :

a have no continuous institutional existence ;

b are in practice consultative gatherings only, and are held at irregular intervals ;

c embrace non-European States ;

9. Persuaded of the need for the member countries of the Council of Europe, in their individual no less than in their common interests, to keep the progress of modern science and technology under constant and collective review, with a view to :

a ensuring the prosperity and growth of the economy of those countries individually, and of the European continent as a whole ;

b enabling Europe to fulfil her obligations towards other, less wealthy and less developed continents ;

c furthering not only man's knowledge of his own nature and of the universe in which he lives, but also his power to foresee and plan for the optimum conditions of life in the European society of the future ;

10. Deploring the fact that, for want of comparable national statistics, it is not yet possible to measure with any degree of precision Europe's scientific potential and the proportion of that potential which can be mobilised for programmes of international collaboration either at the European or at the world level, Recommends the Committee of Ministers :

A. As regards science policy at the national level :

11. To invite the Governments of the member countries of the Council of Europe to adopt, as recommended to the 2nd Ministerial Meeting on Science, the administrative device of the "annual science policy budget" - either of the ex post or of the ex ante variety - in order to :

a promote a national science policy which is properly co-ordinated and regularly adapted to scientific progress ;

b permit a clearer understanding, on the part of both Parliament and the public, of the size of the national effort and of the country's international commitments as regards research and development ;

12. To invite the said Governments, moreover, to adapt their national statistics as far as possible to the model laid down by the so-called Frascati method, in such a way that it becomes possible, on the one hand, for each of them to make a better comparative judgment of the scientific potential of their own country, and, on the other hand, to make as exact an evaluation as possible of European resources in the field of scientific and technological research ;

B. As regards science policy at the European level :

13. To invite the said Governments to consider measures designed :

a to improve the co-ordination of their co-operative scientific enterprises and to harmonise the programmes of those enterprises ;

b to establish, on the basis of the national science policy budgets drawn up in accordance with the method referred to in paragraph 11 above, an indicative overall European Budget covering all existing and foreseeable programmes for science and technology, within whose framework some or all of the member States of the Council of Europe co-operate scientifically either amongst themselves or with the other countries of the world ;

c to define, publicise, and publicly review at regular intervals, guide-lines for the development of European scientific collaboration ;

14. To convene for this purpose, as early as possible and in any case before the next Meeting of the OECD States' Science Ministers, an ad hoc intergovernmental meeting, which might follow the Ministerial Conference envisaged by Recommendation 461, and which would study the specific problems of co-operation between the member countries of the Council of Europe in the matter of scientific and technological research, and in particular the drawing up of on overall European policy for scientific collaboration.