Spain Moves To Upgrade Its Scientific Standing

MADRID—With 1992 and European commercial integration fast approaching, Spain has taken measures to launch itself into the mainstream of European science, boosting the funding and training of its scientists and taking key steps to attract foreign technology-based industries. While Spanish scientists are pleased with these measures, they also regard them as inadequate if Spain intends to compete successfully in the new, unified, high-tech Europe. “Seven years ago, Spain was at the end of the European train with Portugal and Greece—and well behind Ireland—in the amount we spent on science as a fraction of gross domestic product,” says biochemist Emilio Munoz, president of the National Research Council and one of the principal architects of Spain’s new Law for-Science. “Today, we are well in front of Portugal, Greece, and Ireland. We are even getting close to Belgium and Italy, countries of a similar industrial and commercial level to Spain.” And within the past six years Spain has moved from 19th to 12th in the world in terms of scientific productivity, according to the government-sponsored Institute for Documentary and Historic Studies in Science. Despite these promising statistics, other figures suggest that Spanish science has a lot of ground to make up. For example, the Information Science and Scientometrics Research Unit of the Hungarian Academy of Science, using Science Citation Index data of the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI), Philadelphia, analyzed Spain’s share of scientific papers in the world’s most significant journals (the 3,200 indexed by 151) over the period 1981-85. It also analyzed the impact of those papers, as measured by citations, during the same period. The Hungarians found that Spain contributed about 0.8% of the world’s scientific literature from 1981-85, but that body of work received only 0.4% of the world’s citations given out over the same period. In other words, the impact of Spain’s scientific articles was about half what one might expect. Spanish scientists say that to push Spanish science into the prominence it deserves will take a national effort—especially in terms of jobs and salaries. Miguel Vicente, a molecular biologist at the Center for Biological Research in Madrid, argues that while some good quality research takes place in Spain, the number of jobs for scientists remains inadequate and “we still encounter needless bureaucratic difficulties—in procuring instruments, for example.” Julio Fermoso, the rector of Spain’s oldest university, in Salamanca, praises the government’s efforts, but says they have not gone far enough. “We are not looking after fields such as medicine, which are of great value to the country,” he says. Spain’s efforts to revitalize its science and technology mark a sharp break with the past. “Let others invent,” wrote the Spanish philosopher Miguel de Unamuno at the beginning of this century; and in a country notorious for its disdain toward the scientific method, this sentiment still finds an echo. Science has not yet won the immediate respect that is accorded to art and literature in Spanish society. Industrial isolation and lack of competition in the internal market during General Francisco Franco’s regime also worked against the spirit of innovation until France’s death in 1975.. Even today, many companies, seeking immediate profit, still prefer to let other countries do research and develop technologies. But since the Socialist Party won power in 1982, and with greater impetus since Spain joined the European Community in 1986, the government has worked hard to modernize science and technology. In 1987 Parliament passed the Law for Science, establishing machinery to coordinate publicly financed R&D. And last year the first four-year National Research Plan (NRP) was formulated. The $200 million plan allocates funds for 23 national research programs and for the training of scientists. Eighteen of these programs had begun by the end of 1988, and four more are slated to start this year. “The plan has meant a big boom for the Center for Technological and Industrial Development [CDTI],” says Antonio de Carvajal, general director of the Madrid-based center. “Last year we were able to give more than $120 million to support 223 projects, compared with half these figures in 1987.” The CDTI works mainly with small and medium-sized companies, stimulating them to hire scientists and to do research in collaboration with universities and other public bodies through financial credits. It also provides loans at little or no interest for fledgling technology companies. One of the areas that has been most affected by the National Research Plan is biotechnology. Half of the NRP’s funds are appropriated for biotech related projects, and the plan also established the new National Center for Biotechnology. Victor Rubio, its vice director, believes that Spain has specific, exploitable strengths in microbiology. He cites as one example of these strengths the scientists at Antibiotics SA, a company owned by the multinational group Montedison, which has done major work in genetically engineering microorganisms to produce more effective antibiotics. Another key to the invigoration of science-based industries in the country has been participation in European Community R&D programs. In 1985, Biokit, a biotechnology company based in Barcelona, received the first “Eureka” EC-sponsored project awarded to a Spanish enterprise, to develop a process using monoclonal antibodies to diagnose gonorrhea. “We wanted to grow and to sell in wider markets, and we needed new products,” says Jose Manent, founder and general manager of Biokit, who believes that a company like his “has to do very few things, but do them well.” Biokit, whose scientific staff composes a quarter of its 100 employees, now sells diagnostic kits for infec tious diseases in Europe, the U.S., and Japan; it has wholly owned subsidiaries in the U.S. and Japan and a 90% share in an Italian subsidiary. The goal of Spain’s National Plan, says Emilio Munoz, is not to have a crash program of modernization but “to be realistic.” Neither the money nor the total number of scientists (only 25,000 for 40 million inhabitants), he notes, are yet comparable to the figures for major developed countries. “If we were to rival the larger countries, Spain would need to have 40,000 researchers in employment. Whatever progress we make toward that sort of figure in the next few years will depend largely on the efforts of the private sector to recruit more of the scientists now being trained.” The plan is providing training for 9,000 scientists this year—one of the largest figures in the world—but the government plans only a modest growth in the total number of positions in public institutions over the next four years. Despite the progress in programs and training,after leaving school Spanish scientists are still faced with few positions and inadequate salaries. A scientist who becomes a university professor or “full researcher” between the ages of 27 and 30 receives lifelong tenure as a public officer. Thereafter, such individuals find it impossible to gain further salary increases, other than cost-of-living raises, for the rest of their careers. The Science Ministry is currently working on a scheme that will permit real pay increases to reward scientific productivity—as measured by number of publications and citation—but the details have not yet been announced. Many of Spain’s scientists, including some of the most prominent, remain skeptical about the government’s recent initiatives. “Our scientific level is low and we are tremendously technodependent on other countries who are leaders in science and technology,” wrote Nicolas Garcia, professor of fundamental physics at Madrid University and a collaborator of Nobel laureates Heinrich Rohrer and Gerd Binning, recently in the leading daily newspaper, El Pais. “This government has voted for technological development, leaving basic science [low on] the list of priorities.” Severo Ochoa, who settled in the U.S. in 1941 and returned home permanently three years ago, has repeatedly expressed his disappointment over the rate at which science is receiving greater consideration in Spain. Ochoa shared the 1959 Nobel Prize with Arthur Kornberg for their work on the synthesis of RNA and DNA. He still finds support for science inadequate, and strongly criticizes the fact that scientific positions in the public sector are lifelong in Spain. Ochoa’s frustration is echoed by one of his collaborators at the Center for Molecular Biology in Madrid, Antonio Garcia Bellido. A member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, Bellido suggests that there is still a long way to go before his country’s scientists are truly valued. “Spanish society turns its back on research.” he says, “so that many scientists, whatever their professional recognition, feel alone with their work.” Malen Ruiz de Elvira is a freelance writer based in Madrid.

Spain Moves To Upgrade Its Scientific Standing

Interested in reading more?

Become a Member of