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Europe needs to change its attitudes to R&D if it is to protect the continent’s comfortable lifestyle and social provisions. But will better attitudes, greater motivation and a stronger role for small- and medium-sized enterprises be enough to reverse the trend?
Europe faces a brain drain. In 2001, 26 000 technically skilled people were granted H1B visas to work in the US, according to figures from the US National Science Foundation. They were joined by a further 7000 scientists and engineers from countries that were in the process of joining the Union at the time. One third of those who go to the US to work in technology jobs will stay. The US is currently host to 400 000 European science and technology graduates, only 13% of whom are planning to come back.
A taskforce of younger EIRMA members has been investigating why European scientists are so keen to move to the US. As part of their research they interviewed Dr Dorothea Wiesmann, a research staff member at IBM Research, Zurich. She took a degree in physics in Berlin and then spent a year as an intern at Bell Labs in New Jersey. She then returned to Switzerland to take a PhD at ETH in Zurich and join the European lab of American technology giant IBM.
“What impressed me at Bell Labs was the passion and ‘can do’ attitude to challenges, as well as the collaborative spirit,” she said. “In the US, there’s more conviction that barriers can be overcome.”
Wiesmann says that the declining interest in science and technology in Europe may be due to declining opportunities. She believes the move to a more service-oriented society in Europe may also make the achievements of science and technology less visible.
The taskforce’s work suggests that European scientists go to the US for a number of reasons. They get the chance to work with the world’s best scientists, and access to defined career paths that enable academics to progress step by step, based on achievement. Graduate students are well supported, and grants are available, which gives them some independence.
Other factors include the perception that the US is a welcoming culture where scientists will get better jobs sooner and have greater freedom. The taskforce also suggested that science has a better image in the US, and greater public recognition.
In an open discussion session, Prof Ken Taylor of the European Transformation Network, said: “We [Europe] have to say we are a winning team, because everyone wants to join a winning team.”
Dr Melissa Flagg, associate director for international science and technology policy at the US Office of Naval Research, pointed out that it was important to do more than simply declare the attractiveness of doing research in Europe: “Great organisations act like great organisations.”
She said Europe needs to decide what it wants its hiring policies to achieve: “Europe has to decide if it wants the best Europeans, or the best [from anywhere]. Either is fine, but you have to structure for it.”
The biggest issue that the taskforce identified was not emigration, but the declining number of graduates, in both Europe and the US, coming out of colleges with the kinds of skills industrial research needs. One way around this issue is to make existing workers more effective.
Pierluigi Picciotti, a taskforce member and knowledge manager at Linde Gas, said: “The R&D department is one of the least effective departments of a company, if effectiveness is measured in terms of input compared to output. But that is seen as OK, because R&D is seen as a cost and so we don’t look for efficiency.”
Daniele Molinari, another taskforce manager and a researcher at Eni Technologie, detected a difference in the impact that management hierarchies have on effectiveness in the US and Europe. He says this is particularly true when a big project needs input from senior decision-makers: “In my company it is difficult to have a meeting with my boss, the CEO and a researcher.”
Another speaker suggested that Europe’s risk-averse culture made it safer not to take decisions: “It’s all about risk taking. If you take no decision, you’ve not done good or bad. If you make a decision and get it wrong, then you’re out.”
Prof Taylor said one way to improve effectiveness is to be clearer about what people are being asked to achieve: “You can encourage people to release their full potential by providing crystal-clear objectives and by removing all bottlenecks”
One thing that can boost effectiveness is staff motivation. Dr Suzanne Davison, business technology manager for acetyls at BP Chemicals, said that it was becoming increasingly difficult to motivate staff through direct contact: “It’s hard now to spend enough time with researchers telling them they are valued.”
She added that different things will motivate different generations: “Younger people have different expectations about the world of work. Being valued by your company and your society are the things that motivate us all.”
Sir John Cadogan, a professor at the University of Wales, said it was easy to tell if people were motivated in their jobs. He said that if people are doing 15 to 20% more hours than expected of them, that’s a good sign. Conversely, if there’s an increase in sickness rates in a particular research group, that’s a bad sign: “If we saw that, we had no hesitation in going in and changing the team leader.”
Jean-Jacques Mermod is worldwide R&D training and development director for pharmaceuticals company Serono, which uses a sophisticated set of tools to recruit, retain and motivate staff. In effect it is trying to create a pipeline of people that can develop in its business, alongside the pipeline of drug candidates it is working on.
The Serono approach begins with a web site where people can look for jobs with the company. If they don’t find a job immediately, they can deposit a CV with Serono and set some search keywords so that they get an email when a relevant job is posted. After a year the website sends them an email asking whether they want to remove or update their CV.
“This has created a database of tens of thousands of scientists for us,” said Mermod.
As scientists join the company and begin projects, they are introduced to the PACE system, for Performance and Compensation Electronically. This enables staff to work with their managers to set objectives for the year and then log them in PACE. There’s a mid-year review, and then an appraisal at the end of the year. A bonus, of up to 25% of salary is then paid, based on performance.
Serono further motivates staff by allowing them to set aside up to 10% of their salary to buy company stock, at a discount of 15% to its lowest price during the year. If a staff member holds the stock for more than a year, the company will then give them one share for every three they hold. It adds up to an overall discount of around 40%.
Mermod believes another way to motivate scientists is to take their ideas seriously. Serono has another database, called SNAP, in which staff can write up a research proposal and request that it is reviewed by named individuals.
“It forces people to think through their proposals,” said Mermod.
Other tools that Serono uses include internal communications, especially the use of patient testimonials to demonstrate the impact that the scientists’ work has on real people’s lives. Serono also encourages its scientists to publish their work, in order to keep them up to date and employable, and to retain the company’s public profile.
But do all these tools actually motivate scientists to do science? Mermod thinks perhaps not: “Managers cannot motivate scientists – they can create an environment where people can motivate themselves.”
European research staff may lack motivation because they sense they are working in the wrong place. The younger managers’ taskforce also looked at the location issue, and found that a self-fulfilling prophecy may be at work.
“The problem is that we believe R&D in Europe has no future,” said one. “If that is the case, then it doesn’t.”
The argument goes as follows: the place for R&D is near the customer, the customer is in China and India, therefore R&D should be in China and India. Obviously.
But the taskforce pointed out that Europe holds rich opportunities for research, if only they are recognised. For example, demographic trends mean that half of Europe’s population will be ‘old’ in 20 years’ time. This change offers great scope for R&D in areas such as healthcare systems, transportation, communication, infrastructure, leisure, social systems, and consumer goods. The end market for this work would be catering for the needs of 150m rich European customers.
Wider global changes will also have a local impact that could lead to big research opportunities in Europe. Resource management issues, such as access to water and electricity, will create demand for R&D in water cleaning, sewage and desalination systems; as well as electrical issues such as power quality, the need for a European grid system, and smart distribution strategies. This market is even larger, numbering 300m rich European customers.
Energy and environmental issues also apply in Europe, creating research opportunities in alternative fuels, improved nuclear power strategies, carbon sequestration, clean air and alternative energies. And Europe, as much as anywhere else, will need to look again at security issues and new ways to combat threats that are becoming increasingly diffuse and difficult to understand.
One key factor in the reinvigoration of Europe’s R&D capability may be a greater emphasis on the role of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). If Europe is to meet the Commission’s Lisbon strategy goals, of spending 3% of GDP on R&D by 2010, the private sector would have to double its R&D budget in six years. The younger manager’s taskforce that investigated the issue suggested this was unlikely.
Instead, looking to the US, it found that SMEs’ share of the overall R&D spend in America has increased fivefold between 1981 and 1999. Large companies’ share of overall R&D spending has dropped 70.7% to 41.3%. America’s SMEs are larger than Europe’s: the average European SME has six staff, compared to 19 in the US. US SMEs grow more effectively, producing 64 billion-dollar companies since 1980, compared with Europe’s six.
If large companies are unable or willing to double R&D spending to meet the Lisbon objectives, it seems clear that Europe should do what it can to help SMEs grow to fill the gap. The question is whether large companies can help, perhaps by outsourcing more work to the SMEs and also by acting as industry ‘hubs’, through which SMEs can network effectively.
The younger manager’s taskforce is quite clear: although its work exposed a relatively bleak outlook for R&D in Europe, these young people want to keep living here, and want to maintain Europe’s prosperity and the European lifestyle. So they need to come up with options.
Their conclusions are straightforward. Europe should identify and concentrate on its strengths. It should learn everything it can from the US, but not slavishly copy it, instead finding its own way forward. It needs to improve the image of science as socially valuable and a worthwhile career, and encourage curiosity and entrepreneurship. Most of all, Europe needs to stop talking itself into a corner and to develop a positive attitude that turns ‘Yes, but’ into ‘Why not?’
The taskforce had one more, stark recommendation: Europe needs to make these changes before it is too late.
doi:eiq-2006-008-0025
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