Head of EU’s top science agency walks out of post

The head of the European Union’s top science agency walked out of his post and burned the bridge behind him with a caustic resignation statement that slammed internal politics and the bloc’s response to coronavirus.

Mauro Ferrari, an Italian-American scientist who took up the post of president of the European Research Council (ERC) only in January, wrote a 1,000-word statement denouncing the agency and its rejection of his idea to set up a special Covid-19 research programme.

“I have been extremely disappointed by the European response to Covid-19,” Prof Ferrari wrote, adding that his “idealistic dream of a United Europe” had been “crushed”.

"I am afraid that I have seen enough of both the governance of science, and the political operations at the European Union, " he wrote.

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The research council responded with a statement of its own, in which it said Prof Ferrari had quit after the 19 members of its Scientific Council had asked him to leave in a unanimous vote of no confidence.

The vote was called because Prof Ferrari had failed to attend important meetings and spent extensive time in the United States and working on other projects, had promoted personal initiatives, and "displayed a complete lack of appreciation for the raison-d'être of the ERC", it said.

“Therefore, we regret Prof Ferrari’s statement, which at best is economical with the truth,” the statement read.

‘Political storm’

A scientist known for his contributions in the field of nanomedicine, Prof Ferrari wrote that a "political storm" broke out internally when he worked directly with European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen, by developing and sending a plan about how the pandemic should be addressed.

“I have been extremely disappointed by the European response to Covid-19, for what pertains to be the complete absence of co-ordination of healthcare policies among member states, the recurrent opposition to cohesive financial support initiatives, the pervasive one-sided border closures, and the marginal scale of synergistic scientific initiatives,” he wrote.

Among Prof Ferrari’s complaints was that he had tried to establish a special programme dedicated to combating Covid-19, but it had been unanimously rejected.

“I thought that at a time like this, the very best scientists in the world should be provided with resources and opportunities to fight the pandemic, with new drugs, new vaccines, new diagnostic tools, new behavioural dynamic approaches based on science,” he wrote.

In its response, the ERC said that some 50 projects it had funded with about €100 million in grant money were already contributing to the scientific response to the pandemic. It clarified that it does not make calls for research on specific topics as Prof Ferrari had suggested, because it believed allowing researchers to decide what to work on was the way to produce the best science.

The European Commission previously launched a €10 million emergency research fund for coronavirus, and also directed €45 million from its Innovative Medicines Initiative – a partnership with industry – to develop treatments and diagnostics.

The ERC was established in 2007 to fund top European scientists, and had a budget of €1.86 billion in 2018.