By Martin Banks - 14th December 2011
We cannot risk our future growth and competitiveness by cutting back now on the investment in education
Máire Geoghegan-Quinn
European business leaders and education policy makers have launched an €8.3m initiative to "inspire" students to study science at university.
At the launch on Wednesday, it was said that science is a "much needed" skill if the EU economy is to "recover and flourish" by 2020.
Andre van Aperen, of oil giant Shell, who spoke at the launch, said, "This lack of scientists threatens Europe's economic recovery."
The commission is funding half of the €8.3m cost of the new initiative with the rest coming from industry.
The overall aim is to promote science at school-level throughout Europe and make the subject appear more "sexy" for young people for study and a possible future career.
Speaking at a news conference, Van Aperen said, "At present Asian countries train twice as many scientists compared to European member states, and three times as many engineers.
"This training gap is threatening the future of Europe's economic recovery due to the lack of qualified scientific and technical human resources - the key drivers of scientific progress and innovation.
"Although the number of graduates in the fields is now increasing slowly, their academic achievement falls well behind that of their Asian counterparts."
He pointed to a pioneering Dutch scheme under which science and technology is closely integrated on the curricula of one third of the country's schools.
Another speaker, Alexa Joyce, InGenious project manager, said, "Unless this skills set gap is addressed, companies operating in Europe will need to recruit scientific and engineering talent from other regions, or even close facilities in Europe in favour of other regions."
Brian Ader, secretary general of ERT, "This will have a negative impact on salary levels and local economies – high level R&D is typically a well-paid and resource-intensive activity."
His comments are echoed by Máire Geoghegan-Quinn, EU commissioner for science, research and innovation, who highlighted the scale of the problem in a recent speech.
She said, "We cannot risk our future growth and competitiveness by cutting back now on the investment in education, research and innovation that is necessary for long-term and sustained recovery."
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