1516
downward spiral on which the demographic trap closes? Neither an expanding population nor everexpanding aspirations are tolerable and the two in harness will be fatal. It is no good levelling off carbon dioxide emissions, saving rain forests, guarding the diversity of species-or even donating 0-7% of the gross national product of a developed world that has wreaked most of the environmental havoc so farunless there is a commitment on population in the developing world. Such an undertaking from, say, the Group of 77 countries would put to shame the posturing and wriggling of the leaders of some wealthy nations. 1. Editorial. Pressure on the eco-seams. Lancet 1992; 339: 1265-67. 2. Editorial. Earth matters. Lancet 1992; 339: 1325-26. 3. Our planet, our health: report of the WHO Commission on Health and Environment. Geneva: WHO, 1992.
Pandolfi’s box: research in
Europe
There was a crisis in Brussels last week-not about Maastricht or Viking voters but on the future of the European Community’s small medical research programme. The EC spends huge sums on research and development, but of the total expenditure of 5700 million ecu planned for 1990-94, biomedicine and health gets just 2-3%. This is 87 million or so, less than the allocation to biotechnology or to testing industrial materials, and about one-quarter of the sum given to fusion energy. The EC commissioner in charge is Felippo Pandolfi. He would prefer a larger treasure chest, recognising that Brussels-controlled R & D pales into insignificance beside the amounts spent by individual member states.1 Medicine is no exception: the current EC programme, known as BIOMED 1, will spend over five years less than half the annual budget of the UK’s Medical Research Council. BIOMED, as with the 1987-91 Fourth Medical and Health Research Programme (MHR4), will mainly be used to lubricate the wheels of collaborative research in Europe. "Subsidiarity" is EC-speak for doing nothing from Brussels that can be done just as well in and by member states individually. In BIOMED, which rolls on from MHR4, this is translated as "concerted actions".2 More than one country must be involved, of course; the project has to fit in with EC priorities (AID S, cancer, cardiovascular disease, and ageing, for example); and there must be a perceived, if not always provable, add-on benefit to warrant EC participation. Even with these restraints, and with many leading groups not knowing of or not wishing to take advantage of the offer, applications have swamped the funds available. The job of handling Pandolfi’s box falls to advisers and to a secretariat which is overstretched and understaffed. Such an excess of demand over supply-and we are talking in BIOMED of about 20 to 13---demands a well-oiled selection procedure that wins the respect of research-workers. Once the priorities have been
declared, scientific quality should be the main, some would say the only, consideration. In other words, peer review of applications and of supported projects in progress. The medical research community in Europe thought it had won that argument but now fears that the process has become too politicised. However, the EC is a political animal, and even in the US, where peer review has a bureaucracy all of its
"pork barrel" has not disappeared.4 There are legitimate political pressures: the encouragement of science in less well endowed EC states is surely justifiable (opportunities for training grants were advertised in last week’s Lancet). Three times the EC Commission has appointed panels to look at its medical research programmes (Wolstenhoime, Hunter, and Maynard, to name the chairmen), and these have been critical. The latest of these reports appeared in July, 1990,5 and its comments on MHR4 were not kindly received in Brussels. It questioned whether concerted actions were the right way to go and it found the review system imperfect. Some useful work has resulted: contributions from EURODIAB, from the Parisbased AIDS centre, and from a Dutch team looking at inequalities in health and UK-based projects on asthma and avoidable deaths come to mind. The yield elsewhere is less impressive but even there the building of bridges has been a significant own, the
achievement. Those attending last week’s meeting of the BIOMED management committee were expecting a lively gathering. They were not disappointed. After painstaking scientific appraisal 1900 "declarations of intent" had already been whittled down to just over 300, and those applicants had been invited to submit in greater detail. The prospect remains that no more than 100 can be funded of this first wave of proposals. The management committee-three representatives of all twelve EC members and of six associated countries-has this year been downgraded to a committee "advisory in nature", and they were horrified to learn that the Commission had written to all applicants, leaving the impression that everything might yet be reassessed. As a result 725 (not 313) detailed proposals have been received. The meeting on June 11, chaired by Hendrik Tent, came near to collapse. On Friday came compromise. The scientific rankings stand but it looks as if the remaining selection procedures will have to be applied to the 725. Time is running out. BIOMED must allocate 42 million ecu by the end of the year, leaving only three summer months for the detailed scrutiny before decision time in October. 1. Mundell I. Maastricht drives R & D to the market. Nature 1992; 356:650. 2. European Community. Biomedical and health research programme
(1990-1994). Biomed HealthRes Newsl 1991, no S/91. 3. Dyer M. Biomed I programme. Lancet 1992; 339:1221. 4. Greenberg DS. When science and politics collide. Lancet1992;339:1469. 5. Commission of the European Communities. Evaluation of the fourth Medical and Health Research Programme (1987-1991). Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications of the EC, 1990.
downward spiral on which the demographic trap closes? Neither an expanding population nor everexpanding aspirations are tolerable and the two in harness will be fatal. It is no good levelling off carbon dioxide emissions, saving rain forests, guarding the diversity of species-or even donating 0-7% of the gross national product of a developed world that has wreaked most of the environmental havoc so farunless there is a commitment on population in the developing world. Such an undertaking from, say, the Group of 77 countries would put to shame the posturing and wriggling of the leaders of some wealthy nations. 1. Editorial. Pressure on the eco-seams. Lancet 1992; 339: 1265-67. 2. Editorial. Earth matters. Lancet 1992; 339: 1325-26. 3. Our planet, our health: report of the WHO Commission on Health and Environment. Geneva: WHO, 1992.
Pandolfi’s box: research in
Europe
There was a crisis in Brussels last week-not about Maastricht or Viking voters but on the future of the European Community’s small medical research programme. The EC spends huge sums on research and development, but of the total expenditure of 5700 million ecu planned for 1990-94, biomedicine and health gets just 2-3%. This is 87 million or so, less than the allocation to biotechnology or to testing industrial materials, and about one-quarter of the sum given to fusion energy. The EC commissioner in charge is Felippo Pandolfi. He would prefer a larger treasure chest, recognising that Brussels-controlled R & D pales into insignificance beside the amounts spent by individual member states.1 Medicine is no exception: the current EC programme, known as BIOMED 1, will spend over five years less than half the annual budget of the UK’s Medical Research Council. BIOMED, as with the 1987-91 Fourth Medical and Health Research Programme (MHR4), will mainly be used to lubricate the wheels of collaborative research in Europe. "Subsidiarity" is EC-speak for doing nothing from Brussels that can be done just as well in and by member states individually. In BIOMED, which rolls on from MHR4, this is translated as "concerted actions".2 More than one country must be involved, of course; the project has to fit in with EC priorities (AID S, cancer, cardiovascular disease, and ageing, for example); and there must be a perceived, if not always provable, add-on benefit to warrant EC participation. Even with these restraints, and with many leading groups not knowing of or not wishing to take advantage of the offer, applications have swamped the funds available. The job of handling Pandolfi’s box falls to advisers and to a secretariat which is overstretched and understaffed. Such an excess of demand over supply-and we are talking in BIOMED of about 20 to 13---demands a well-oiled selection procedure that wins the respect of research-workers. Once the priorities have been
declared, scientific quality should be the main, some would say the only, consideration. In other words, peer review of applications and of supported projects in progress. The medical research community in Europe thought it had won that argument but now fears that the process has become too politicised. However, the EC is a political animal, and even in the US, where peer review has a bureaucracy all of its
"pork barrel" has not disappeared.4 There are legitimate political pressures: the encouragement of science in less well endowed EC states is surely justifiable (opportunities for training grants were advertised in last week’s Lancet). Three times the EC Commission has appointed panels to look at its medical research programmes (Wolstenhoime, Hunter, and Maynard, to name the chairmen), and these have been critical. The latest of these reports appeared in July, 1990,5 and its comments on MHR4 were not kindly received in Brussels. It questioned whether concerted actions were the right way to go and it found the review system imperfect. Some useful work has resulted: contributions from EURODIAB, from the Parisbased AIDS centre, and from a Dutch team looking at inequalities in health and UK-based projects on asthma and avoidable deaths come to mind. The yield elsewhere is less impressive but even there the building of bridges has been a significant own, the
achievement. Those attending last week’s meeting of the BIOMED management committee were expecting a lively gathering. They were not disappointed. After painstaking scientific appraisal 1900 "declarations of intent" had already been whittled down to just over 300, and those applicants had been invited to submit in greater detail. The prospect remains that no more than 100 can be funded of this first wave of proposals. The management committee-three representatives of all twelve EC members and of six associated countries-has this year been downgraded to a committee "advisory in nature", and they were horrified to learn that the Commission had written to all applicants, leaving the impression that everything might yet be reassessed. As a result 725 (not 313) detailed proposals have been received. The meeting on June 11, chaired by Hendrik Tent, came near to collapse. On Friday came compromise. The scientific rankings stand but it looks as if the remaining selection procedures will have to be applied to the 725. Time is running out. BIOMED must allocate 42 million ecu by the end of the year, leaving only three summer months for the detailed scrutiny before decision time in October. 1. Mundell I. Maastricht drives R & D to the market. Nature 1992; 356:650. 2. European Community. Biomedical and health research programme
(1990-1994). Biomed HealthRes Newsl 1991, no S/91. 3. Dyer M. Biomed I programme. Lancet 1992; 339:1221. 4. Greenberg DS. When science and politics collide. Lancet1992;339:1469. 5. Commission of the European Communities. Evaluation of the fourth Medical and Health Research Programme (1987-1991). Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications of the EC, 1990.
