Posted on 21 June 2016
The European Science Foundation (ESF) recently deposited its archives in Florence. At the occasion of the seminar “Heritage of the European Science Foundation” at Villa Salviati on 11 and 12 April to mark the archival deposit, an interview was conducted with the ESF’s Chief Executive Jean-Claude Worms on the history of the ESF and the challenges of scientific cooperation in today’s Europe.
What are the most important key moments in the ESF’s history?
The most important one is clearly the founding, in 1974, when the whole concept of the need for a European Science Foundation was introduced and the ESF began work.
Then, in 1999, after the fall of the Berlin Wall the Western member states turned to Central and Eastern Europe and started to incorporate the organisations there into the ESF. This greatly expanded the body of ESF member organisations and the reach of its recommendations.
You could argue that another key moment is around 2009/10 when the ESF member organisations decided to stop the traditional ESF mission to fund research programmes and research networks.
At the time there was some uncertainty about the future of the ESF because some member organisations wanted to terminate the whole enterprise, while others thought that the ESF’s four decades of experience should be put to use. The whole discussion about what to make of the ESF lasted four years. From that standpoint, the third milestone would be 2015 when it was decided to actually turn the ESF into an implementation agency, a science service-providing organisation.
What does the transformation into a service-based organization mean for the ESF?
Over the past decades, ESF has built strong foundation in certain processes related to scientific management. What we are doing now is really putting that foundation to work in supporting research decision-makers, funding agencies and research performing agencies. We advise them in carrying out their science-related decision-making process by using, and developing, the most appropriate metrics, the best evaluation and peer-review tools, and the experience we have in terms of project management and research support. These are the main services we currently provide on a contractual basis.
A part of the discussion during the event at the Historical Archives on the heritage of the ESF focused on this future mission, and clearly there is a potential for the ESF to become what we call an “implementation agency” to broaden its service base.
What are the most interesting projects the ESF is currently involved in?
We are involved in a broad variety of projects, but I can single out a few: One is the MERIL project. MERIL means Mapping of the European Research Infrastructure Landscape. It is actually a portal that started with funding by the European Commission, then changed to funding by our organisation and is now in a phase that it is funded again by the European Commission through the Horizon 2020 –programme. The idea is to have an easily accessible web portal describing all significant research infrastructures in Europe in all domains: from archives and statistical offices to biobanks, satellites and particle accelerators. MERIL is a unique platform, which provides vital access, resource and planning information to the policy and research communities across nations, thus enabling higher usage of expensive facilities, preventing duplication and generating greater value from investment.
Another key project is our participation in the GRAPHENE Flagship. The European Commission has funded under FP7 and H2020 two important projects, one on GRAPHENE the new revolutionary 2D material that promises a lot of applications, and another one on human brain. ESF is involved in the GRAPHENE Flagship projects as one of the partners dealing with evaluation and peer-review, and in related projects (CORE1, SCOPE).
Why did the ESF decide to deposit their archives here at the Historical Archives of the European Union?
Having concluded its traditional mission, we thought it would be best if the ESF archives would not remain in the basements of the Strasbourg building, but would become available to researchers in social sciences; historians who will do research on the milestones in the construction of European science. So it made good sense to do that in a place that was already capturing this common knowledge about European institutions.
What do you think of your visit to the Archives and the seminar on the ESF heritage?
The local scenery is fantastic and we were happy to be hosted here. At Villa Salviati we have the history, the building and the aesthetics, and in the vaults we have the modern, up-to-date archiving facilities and professional archive keeping. It is good to see that our documents are taken care of in this professional way and it is also an emotional moment, because we used to see these papers in the context of ESF, running as a traditional organization, and now we see them stored in a very different context where they will be put to use for research.
The “Heritage of the European Science Foundation” was organised by the European Science Foundation, the Historical Archives of the European Union and the University of Strasbourg Institute for Advanced Studies.
Read the ESF press release on the archival deposit in Florence.
Visit the European Science Foundation’s website.
You can also follow the ESF and the HAEU on Twitter.