With the Europe 2020 strategy for an “Innovation Union” aiming to improve conditions and access to finance for research and innovation in Europe, and with Asia emerging as a powerful centre of research, more and more opportunities of scientific cooperation exist between the two regions.

For this reason,  ASEAN  and the EU, have declared 2012, as "the ASEAN-EU Year of Science, Technology and Innovation" in order to proactively promote and increase cooperation between the two regions at all levels, bringing policy makers, universities, research institutions and industries together. At the same time, competition is increasing between leading R&D centers to attract the best scientists.

Launched in 2007 by the EU, the European Research Council's (ERC), promotes both junior and established researchers to pursue their work in Europe in any field of research and regardless of their nationality. The ERC supports top researchers from anywhere in the world including from the ASEAN region.

Recently, the ERC has launched an internationalisation strategy to substantially increase the number of applications from excellent researchers from outside Europe. In this lecture, Prof Helga Nowotny, President of the European Research Council, will present the grant opportunities offered by this first European funding body and will explain its achievements, early impacts and future challenges from different perspectives.

Based on the sole principle of scientific excellence, the ERC has put an evaluation system into place that enjoys high credibility in the scientific community. It supports individual researchers in a unique “bottom-up” basis - covering all fields of research from social sciences to life science and physical sciences and engineering - without predetermined priorities. This approach allows researchers to identify new opportunities and directions in any field of research, and ensures that funds are channeled into new and promising areas of research with a greater degree of flexibility.

The ERC celebrating its 5th anniversary this year, stands out as a success story for scientific achievements in Europe. Since its start, the ERC has launched eleven calls for proposals, of which nine have been concluded. The competitions yielded a total of over 25,000 scientific proposals out of which more than 2,500 have been selected for funding, among which some Nobel Prize winners.

About the speaker

Helga Nowotny is President of the European Research Council (ERC) and Professor emeritus of Social Studies of Science, ETH Zurich. From 1998 on she was also Director of its Collegium Helveticum. She has been founding director of the post-graduate fellowship programme based at ETH “Society in science: the Branco Weiss Fellowship” until 2004, when she returned to her native Vienna. She received her doctorate in law at the University of Vienna and her Ph. D. in sociology at Columbia University, New York. She has held teaching and research positions at the Institute of Advanced Study in Vienna, King's College, Cambridge, UK, the   University of Bielefeld, the Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin and the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris. In 1981-1982 and 2003-2004 she was a Fellow at the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin and from 1992-1999 Permanent Fellow at Collegium Budapest/Institute of Advanced Study. Before moving to ETH Zurich, she was Professor and Head of the newly founded Institute for Theory and Social Studies of Science of the University of Vienna.

Economic and Monetary Union has been one of the farthest-reaching projects of international cooperation, apart from the outright merging of states and territories. In pursuit of this goal, it has set in motion powerful dynamics which threaten to unravel the whole project. These dynamics are in a way a consequence of its success and can be described as the inescapable “trilemma”. The euro exerts, first, a powerful pressure towards economic convergence. Second, it has an explicit expansionary logic that the eurozone be enlarged. Third, given its wide-ranging political, economic and societal consequences, it requires a deepening of supranational democracy far beyond levels that even European states are ready to contemplate. I argue that only two of these inescapable logics or trajectories can be realised at the same time. The resulting tensions lie at the core of the current crisis.

About the speaker

Hubert ZIMMERMANN is Professor, International Relations, Philipp University  of Marburg, Germany. Previously he held positions at Düsseldorf University (Germany) and Cornell University (USA). He graduated from the European University Institute in Florence. His current research interests focus on global financial and monetary policy, the European Union (in particular monetary union and trade policy), EU-China relations, and transatlantic relations. Among his publications are Money and Security- Troops and Monetary Policy in Germany's Relations to the United States and the United Kingdom, 1950-71 (Cambridge UP, 2002), a book comparing EU and U.S. policies in the integration of China into the world trade system (Drachenzähmung, Nomos editors, 2007), and numerous edited volumes and articles on monetary and financial policy.

INTRODUCTION

Prof. PIRIS will argue that these three subjects are linked.

The EU is presently in crisis. With a diminishing support of its public opinion and a weak political legitimacy, it must try to solve the problems of the eurozone, partly caused by unbalanced Treaty provisions, while its institutions are not working properly, due to Treaty rules and procedures inappropriate for an Union of 27 very heterogeneous Members.

The Lisbon Treaty did not solve these problems.
Something has to be done. Solving the euro crisis will oblige the eurozone members to share more budgetary and economic powers with the EU institutions. This is very difficult today, given the insufficient political legitimacy of these institutions. Modifying this would need a substantial revision of the Treaties, to be ratified by the 27 EU members, which looks politically impossible.

The time is therefore approaching when the choice will be between:

- either maintaining the status quo and trying to progress under the present rules, which might or might not be successful, with risks of not being able to solve a renewed acute crisis, or leading to social and political turmoils in some member states, or deriving towards a diluted EU, stagnating and slowly becoming irrelevant both for its members and for the external world,

- or accepting, as a temporary measure, more differentiation between the 27 EU members, allowing an «avant-garde», based on the 17 members of the eurozone, to go ahead on some issues, by adopting specific rules respecting the EU Treaties, but allowing a better democratic legitimacy, an increase of the shared powers and improved efficiency, and then helping later the other EU members to join, when willing and able.


ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Professor Jean-Claude Piris
Author of the book "The Lisbon Treaty: A Legal and Political Analysis" (CUP, 2010)

Jean-Claude Piris, as Legal Counsel of  the European Council and of the EU  Council of Ministers, participated in all important decisions taken over the past 20 years by the EU, notably the adoption of new Treaties (Maastricht, Amsterdam, Nice, Constitutional Treaty, Lisbon), and the solutions to the problems caused by their non-ratification.  He is a French Conseiller d'Etat, a former diplomat to the UN and former Director of Legal Affairs at the OECD.

 
ABOUT THE BOOK
The European Union is in crisis. Public unease with the project, Euro problems and dysfunctional institutions give rise to the real danger that the European Union will become increasing irrelevant just as its member states face more and more challenges of a globalised world. Jean-Claude Piris, a leading figure in the conception and drafting of the EU's legal structures, tackles the issues head on with a sense of urgency and with candour. The book works through the options available in light of the economic and political climate, assessing their effectiveness. By so doing, the author reaches the (for some) radical conclusion that the solution is to permit 'two-speed' development: allowing an inner core to move towards closer economic and political union, which will protect the Union as a whole. Compelling, critical and current, this book is essential reading for all those interested in the future of Europe.

THE BOOK IS AVAILABLE FOR SALE AT THE SEMINAR VENUE.

FREE ADMISSION

For enquiries or to register directly with Ms Geraldine Ng, please email cilnwfg@nus.edu.sg