EU lacking neuro connections

As research commissioner Philippe Busquin envisages a European Research Area to foster cooperative research in the European Union, the issue of how best to improve scientific organization is exercising the minds of brain researchers, too.A leading light in the field, Jes Olesen from the Department of Neurology at the Glostrup University Hospital in Glostrup, Denmark, reported in this month's European Journal of Neurology that no less than 35% of the overall burden of disease in the EU is attributable to brain disorders. Considering this, better organization and more funding—to be fair, one third of life science research funding—should be devoted to the brain, Olesen and Matilde Leonardi from Milan's National Neurological Institute Carlo Besta suggest in their article.The issues of funding and organization of brain research were the also focus of a major conference in Brussels last month. Opening the conference, Busquin made a point of the lack of coordination. "Europe has world-class brain researchers who interact on an individual basis across Europe. Yet those that fund brain research hardly interact, let alone coordinate investments at a European level. The brain and neurosciences are a field where Europe can do much more by working better together," he told an audience of 250 experts. Olesen told The Scientist that the fragmentation of resources in the neurosciences, partly a result of the split between basic and clinical research, could be settled if all basic and clinical European brain organizations were put together under a single institution. The European Brain Council (EBC), which he heads, could be suitably placed to play this role. Launched last June, the EBC gathers five pan-European organizations and would like to be able to influence European Commission policy and decision makers on the growing challenge posed by brain disorders in Europe. Mary Baker, president of the EBC-based European Federation of Neurological Associations, told The Scientist there is "a major need to work more collaboratively and focus on the needs of patients as often the research is too disconnected."Olesen says the European Union's current Sixth Framework Research Programme (FRP) "is not enough" to resolve problems inherent to the field, financing included. The EBC is preparing a separate program on brain research within the 7th FRP.But Octavi Quintana-Trias, director of life sciences at the European Commission's research directorate general, told The Scientist that before considering such proposal, a partnership has to be built between the EBC and the Federation of European Neuroscience Societies (FENS), which groups basic research-oriented pan-European societies. "Achieving a united voice would make it easier to identify the topics and the kind of research that needs funding on a European scale," he contends. Olesen replies: "We are very interested in having FENS as a member. We are a shared facility that serves the common interests of the member organizations and therefore could be do the same for FENS." Some neuroscientists are contemplating other alternatives. At the Brussels conference, Erwin Neher from the Max Planck Institute in Göttingen, Germany, suggested the creation of a network of European neuroscience centers dedicated to the support of young scientists. The network would aim "to fill a gap in the career opportunities of young scientists in Europe since there are only few possibilities for independent research," he said. Neher told The Scientist that his idea received a lot of support at the conference, with five different European institutes expressing their interest in joining. He stressed that even though the European Commission recognizes the importance of neuroscience, its funding is geared at applied research and its programs ask for immediate results in terms of new products or new therapies. While all these ideas begin to crystallize, Quintana-Trias says that the decision has already been made on which research teams will be the beneficiaries of the 2004 brain research projects granted by the sixth FRP, worth €45 million. Indeed, some €200 million have been set aside by the European Commission to fund neuroscience research projects up to 2006. Although this more than doubles that provided by the fifth FRP, it still only represents an 8% of the overall FRP health budget—far below the amount recommended by Olesen and Leonardi in the European Journal of Neurology paper.

EU lacking neuro connections

Brain research could be much better organized and cooperative, think European researchers

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