Member states are set to adopt a position backing research assessment reform in Europe – but they’ll stress that any reforms must take into account the diversity of research systems in the EU, according to a draft document seen by Science|Business. Research ministers will meet in Luxembourg on Friday to sign off Council conclusions for research assessment reform in Europe, alongside conclusions on open science, international cooperation and Horizon Europe missions.
Member states are set to adopt a position backing research assessment reform in Europe – but they’ll stress that any reforms must take into account the diversity of research systems in the EU, according to a draft document seen by Science|Business. Research ministers will meet in Luxembourg on Friday to sign off Council conclusions for research assessment reform in Europe, alongside conclusions on open science, international cooperation and Horizon Europe missions.
German research institutions warn against a centralised reform of research assessment in Europe, as the European Commission and stakeholders are getting ready to sign a draft agreement on a set of new guidelines for evaluating researchers.
E-Mail
The most promising vaccine against the coronavirus to date is also an example of the long-term value of curiosity-driven basic research and its funding by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation). The so-called mRNA vaccine platform, which the Mainz-based company BioNTech uses in its Covid-19 vaccine developed jointly with the US pharmaceutical company Pfizer, can be traced back to preliminary work carried out from 2006 to 2008 in a project within a DFG-funded Collaborative Research Centre (CRC) on cancer research at the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz. This in turn was also tied to previous DFG-funded research.
The project was led by the later founder and current CEO of BioNTech, Professor Dr. U?ur ?ahin, whose name and person are closely associated with the development of the BNT162b2 vaccine, which will be deployed immediately following its approval in the United Kingdom and its anticipated approval in the USA and the EU. In addition to