»science policy«

Nature Medicine (27.4.2006) brings an article series on scientific fraud, some advice for whistle-blowers, a description of recent fraud cases (also false claims of fraud), backgrounds and reasons for scientists to "fake data, fudge number or filch ideas," as David Cyranoski writes.

For the very best in school, the curriculum is slow and boring. Hence, the Technische Universität Berlin opens the doors for them. In parallel to the last years in school, pupils may attend lectures in maths, physics, chemistry and computer science. The pupils have to be recommended by their teachers, reports Christian Schwägerl in FAZ (1.9.2006). The elite school children may attend university lectures during school-free afternoons, but also instead of school classes. It's assumed that they learn the missed school curriculum easily. Officials think that a hundred pupils may do the scheme. A next step may be a special guide and mentor to the youngsters to prevent them getting lost among several ten thousands of regular students in Berlin.

Don't simply associate premium cars with German high-tech only. Now the German government put several more research and development topics on a fast track. In its so called High-Tech Initiative the government will spend 14.6 billion euros in the next three years to boost technology-based research and enterprises, welcomes Gretchen Vogel in Science magazine (8.9.2006). Main goal is the transfer of scientific results into products. Therefore science minister Annette Schavan combines new programmes, funding schemes and legislation. SMEs may qualify for funding premiums and venture capital is encouraged. A new funding scheme includes security research (80 million euros) - a novelty for Germany. The biggest lump of money goes into aerospace research.
Well, it's a major step, "on paper", comments Martin Spiewak in Die Zeit (31.8.2006). But a breakthrough indeed because research schemes in Germany are fragmented, eg. in energy research four ministries have overseen the issue. The new initiative combines all fragments into a single framework, applauds Spiewak. The focus on applied science shall initialize corporate research funding, reports Jacqueline Boysen in Deutschlandfunk radio (29.8.2006). Only then Germany might reach the EU-promoted 3-percent-mark in research spending.

As global average temperatures are rising, cutting greenhouse gas emissions like CO2 is (or has to be) a top priority in policy making. Anyway, a growing group of scientists is also considering measures to develop new techniques to mitigate global warming. William Broad reports in the NY Times (27.6.2006) about these projects summarized by the term geoengineering. It includes changing cloud formation to reflect the sunlight, feeding plankton to bind CO2 or launching lenses into Earth orbit to deflect sunlight. It's agreed that curbing CO2 emissions has to stay in the first place, but whether political decisions fail or come to late, further option to cool the planet should be accessible.

"Our commitment is to maintain the highest standards of research integrity, sound science and open communication during the research process," is a statement in a recently published "Bill of Rights" by pharma giant Procter&Gamble. As Phil Baty notes in the THES (24.2.2006) the company was urged to this steps after some irregularities in recent publication processes. In one case academic researchers performed a study for the company but had not full access to the studies data for analysis.
The bill of rights also states that "research authors will define and control the content and direction of any publications resulting from their work" and will have "final authority" over all publication content, writes Baty. Company-sponsored "ghostwriters" will provide help with writing papers "only if requested".

In their annual report eminent economists of the European Economic Advisory Group (EEAG) report on growth factors for the European economy. As the German paper FAZ recently (21.2.2006) pointed out, the report says that one point of the Lisbon agenda is misleading. The agenda states to make Europe become the most competitive area in the world, for instance, by increasing the research budgets to three percent of GDP. Actually, the economists think this general issue is false, and only useful for countries with a technology driven economic growth at present or in the last few years. That's the case for Ireland, Finland, Sweden and the UK. The panel also thinks that the corporate sectors is better informed on how to push hightech into the market and what technology has a future than eurocrats and politicians.

Rebecca Morelle talks to Sir Martin Rees, the president of the British Royal Society. Rees explains at BBC online (2.3.2006) the role of science and the Royal Society today, votes pro-nuclear power (as a measure against global warming) and welcomes the cooperating schemes in the European research programme (FP7). "I also think we should welcome the tremendous scientific developments in India and in China and collaborate with them at all levels," adds Rees.

Peter Fairley sees at the proposal of a European Institute of Technology (EIT) with an American eye. In Technology Review (1.3.2006) he supposes that the lack of successful innovations in Europe (compared to the U.S.) may indeed lie at the business side. Possibly companies don't draw enough benefit from academic-corporate projects.

Munich is about to become Germany's academic powerhouse after two universities of this city won the country's Excellence Initiative, writes Gretchen Vogel in her piece for Science online (13.10.2006). The results of the competition, designed to crown a sort of German Ivy League, brought good news to southern Germany. Two of the three big winners are in Munich: the Technical University Munich (TUM) and the Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich (LMU). The third is the Technical University Karlsruhe, in southwest Germany.

The Excellence Initiative aims to promote some lighthouses in German science that might compete with universities like Oxford and Cambridge (that btw ranked first and second in a recent worldwide comparison). Three top universities get now some extra money to pursue some kind of scientific business plan for excellence and quality. Several other universities get money for smaller scientific programmes like graduate schools or so called excellence clusters.

Donald McNeil profiles in the NY Times (1.8.2006) the editor of the Journal of the American Medical Association, Jama, Catherine DeAngelis. She is a strict proponent of medical authors must disclose any affiliation with the corporate sector. She has also promoted the installation of data bases to include any drug trail, be they successful or not.