Centerfield

European Union Finally Develops NSF Equivalent

This was a huge drawback of EU-wide research funding until now. Imagine if all US govt research funds were directly allocated via the American Senate. Worse, by the Senate as it started, selected by state legislatures instead of popular vote. It was divvied equally by country, regardless of the target's research capacity, and was larded on rather questionable subjects, like the earmarks some bloggers have been bringing to light

The NSF and sister organizations like NIH are often underappreciated, but vital, elements of American research and innovation. The key is that they form panels of researchers to decide by peer review who gets money. Without that, you get, well, a politician's idea of what science projects should be funded.

The European Research Council is the EU's equivalent. This is their first year of operation. The first wave of grants is still under consideration.

I used to sell an early advanced peer-to-peer network system, which involved a fair amount of talking with European network researchers. There was an EU grant in this area, and they were all pretty depressed about how useless it was. Not only was it divided equally by state, but it was solely about making use of an and understanding an American innovation rather than coming up with something new or off-the-wall.