From: "Polychronis Tzedakis" <P.C.Tzedakis@leeds.ac.uk>
To: "Rainer Zahn" <rainer.zahn@uab.es>, "Thomas Stocker" <stocker@climate.unibe.ch>, "Atte Korhola" <atte.korhola@helsinki.fi>
Subject: RE: commission performance alpha 5
Date: Wed, 11 May 2005 16:25:11 +0100
Cc: <Eystein.Jansen@geo.uib.no>, <Imprint-partner@bjerknes.uib.no>, <beatriz.balino@bjerknes.uib.no>, <atle.nesje@geo.uib.no>, <oyvind.lie@geo.uib.no>, <john.birks@bio.uib.no>, <Carin.Andersson@bjerknes.uib.no>, <trond.dokken@bjerknes.uib.no>, <ulysses.ninnemann@geo.uib.no>, <Astrid.Bardgard@fa.uib.no>, <richard.telford@bjerknes.uib.no>

Dear all,
First of all a big hand for Eystein and all those who put in so much time into this task. Very disheartening to hear the outcome.

I have muych sympathy with what Rainer Zahn has said, especially on the Brussels front and the client relationships that are cultivated with EU officials.

I think that in addition to a letter to the EU, I would suggest that perhaps an editorial in NAture or something similar, outlining the growing degree of scepticism amongst scientists regarding the transparency of the EU funding process might be in order.

Chronis Tzedakis


-----Original Message-----
From:	Rainer Zahn [mailto:rainer.zahn@uab.es]
Sent:	Wed 5/11/2005 2:47 PM
To:	Thomas Stocker; Atte Korhola
Cc:	Eystein.Jansen@geo.uib.no; Imprint-partner@bjerknes.uib.no; beatriz.balino@bjerknes.uib.no; atle.nesje@geo.uib.no; oyvind.lie@geo.uib.no; john.birks@bio.uib.no; Carin.Andersson@bjerknes.uib.no; trond.dokken@bjerknes.uib.no; ulysses.ninnemann@geo.uib.no; Astrid.Bardgard@fa.uib.no; richard.telford@bjerknes.uib.no
Subject:	commission performance alpha 5

dear Eystein, dear Imprint consortium,

I am sure I will not make many friends with what follows below. Firstly, it 
surely is sad and disheartening to see our proposal going down. and there 
are many issues involved some of which have been named in the recent 
emails. But then there are those issues left that have not been named but 
which I consider relevant if we are to make progress on the EU FWP front. 
Some of these issues may and will touch a personal nerve here and there, 
but let's face some of the unpleasant realities much rather than sitting 
back and keeping going with business as usual, a business that soon may go 
out of existence.

First, I am not convinced that Imprint was the best we could have done. On 
my side I was surprised to no small extent during our London meeting to see 
that those from the modeling community and other groups present obviously 
had no idea why our palaeo-component (a derivative of the planned ICON IP) 
was part of Imprint, and they were not overly favourable to listen and 
expand their views. So in a sense, even within our own consortium there 
was, perhaps still is a lack of insight and understanding as to what a 
palaeo-component is about and will have to offer. In the end I am now left 
with the impression that ICON would have stood a good chance to survive on 
its own.

Second, as a member of the Imprint consortium I still find it difficult 
today to sort through this proposal and its various components, tasks, 
topics, milestones, deliverables etc. Which only tells me how ever so more 
difficult it must have been for outsiders i.e., reviewers to sift through 
the bits and pieces and comprehend what this is about. But I also feel that 
this has to do with the concept of IPs at large as it is not an easy task 
to compose an IP consortium of the dimension and wide range of expertise 
envisioned by the commission. The outcome of the whole process in my view 
confirms the notion that the concept of IPs has fundamentally (and to a 
large degree predictably) failed. This concept reflects a substantial lack 
of insight on the side of those who were, presumably still are involved in 
designing research policies in the commission about what science is about 
and how it works. Those parties should not be where they are, and they 
certainly should not be involved in setting up FWP7

This is what I have to say about our proposal.

As for the Commission's performance it is not my impression they are living 
up to their own standards that they have set up for the quality of 
proposals requested. In particular the proposal evaluation process is 
ridiculous and lacks any degree of substance. For instance, the reviews 
that I did receive in response to my RTN proposal (submitted last year) are 
mediocre at best, meaningless and useless in detail, beyond anything I 
would consider expert insight, simply a waste of time and tax payers' 
money. They are an insult to anybody who did contribute to and put work and 
effort into that proposal. As for the Impront proposal we now are faced 
with the prospect that the only IP proposal, Millennium, that is competing 
with Imprint from the outset was received more favourably than our own 
proposal. With this I could live were it not for the fact that in 
Millennium everything is named as a strategy and work plan that we were 
being advised to not do. This speaks a language of its own and to me 
reflects a fundamental lack of enthusiasm, professionalism and competence 
with those who give advice and organize the evaluation process. Obviously, 
the vision set out by our programme manager(s) never made it to the 
reviewers who seemed to follow quite different guidelines, if any.

Lastly, from what I can see around me, particularly in the Mediterranean 
club, it appears more important and beneficial to spend time in Brussels 
wiping door handles and leaving a professorial - directorial impression 
rather than composing upbeat cutting edge science proposals. It is ever so 
disheartening that within the FWP our success seems to depend more on who 
we know than the quality we present. Last time when programme managerial 
posts in the commission were reshuffled the primary concern around here was 
that "we now lose our contacts". This is wrong, a disgrace to our community.

I have had a few conversations with colleagues who were partners in EU 
proposals, both successful ones and ones that were rejected. From these 
conversations I sense a growing degree of tiredness about EU science policy 
and more so, about the chaotic way proposals are being solicited and then 
turned down on grounds that so very obviously have nothing to do with the 
science presented. There is also the notion that within the commission 
climate and paleo-work has fallen from grace, for reasons not known to 
many. Which brings me back to the point that perhaps we do not have the 
right programme managers in place to fend our cause.

I am prepared to write a firm letter to the commission, or to contribute to 
such letter, about the issues impinging on the poor performance of the 
commision. I rather do that before turning entirely into a full-grown 
Eurosceptic.

Rainer



    Rainer Zahn, Professor de Recerca
    Institució Catalana de Recerca i Estudis Avançats, ICREA
  i Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona
    Institut de Ciencia i Tecnologia Ambientals
    Edifici Cn - Campus UAB
    E-08193 Bellaterra (Cerdanyola), Spain

    Phone: +34 - 93 581 4219
      Fax: +34 - 93 581 3331
    email: rainer.zahn@uab.es, rainer.zahn@icrea.es
      <http://www.icrea.es/pag.asp?id=Rainer.Zahn>http://www.icrea.es/pag.asp?id=Rainer.Zahn






