Europe Proposes New Conditions on Research and Development

BRUSSELS — The European Commission proposed new rules Wednesday that could make billions of euros of research and development financing conditional on any resulting inventions being marketed in Europe first.

The proposal is part of a broad package of measures aimed at generating jobs and stimulating growth in Europe, and would need to be approved by all 27 E.U. member states and the European Parliament. The conditions could apply to parts of that package of proposed research expenditures, called Horizon 2020, worth €80 billion, or $108 billion, from 2014 to the end of the decade.

The commission, the European Union’s executive branch, could “set additional exploitation conditions in the work program or the grant agreement” in specific cases where there was “very high investment” or where a “strategic interest” of the bloc was involved, Máire Geoghegan-Quinn, the European commissioner for research, said Wednesday.

“This should not be taken as the European Union or the commission putting forward a protectionist policy,” Ms. Geoghegan-Quinn said.

She added that there was “no more open research program in the world” than in Europe.

The commission said its goals were to increase competitiveness, create jobs, attract more top researchers and simplify funding rules to facilitate scientific breakthroughs in areas like health, food security, clean energy and transport, and raw materials for manufacturing.

The additional conditions on commercialization also could help major European manufacturing companies keep production at home.

E.U. officials said the rules were in line with those in many other countries, including the United States, and would apply in only a few cases, like the first commercial applications of a potentially highly lucrative invention or where large numbers of jobs were at stake.

Industry groups including the American Chamber of Commerce to the European Union, TechAmerica and DigitalEurope have expressed concerns about the consequences of any “E.U. first” rules aimed at limiting commercialization of breakthroughs to Europe, saying that such a policy could discourage inventors and hurt the economy.

Representatives of the American Chamber and DigitalEurope said Wednesday that they were studying the proposals and had no immediate comment.

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/01/business/global/europe-proposes-new-conditions-on-research-and-development.html?partner=rss&emc=rss