Re: Selection of the new Director-General of DG Research

Dear Commissioner,

Firstly, we wish to thank you for the initial exchange of views you have undertaken with the trade unions on the subject of the document ‘Towards a European Research Area’.

We appreciated your sense of dialogue and personal availability, revealed on that occasion, particularly with regard to the fears and growing unease of the staff expressed, once again, by all of the trade unions.

Your arrival gave staff new hope: they interpreted your apparent inaction not as a way of endorsing the past, but as a sign of the wisdom and common sense of an experienced politician who is not prepared to act precipitately.

At that point, the staff had hopes for real and deep changes.

It has to be said, however, that after six months in place you have not come up with any concrete reform yet.

Now, DG Research urgently needs a new start that could finally free its staff’s energies, capacities, professionalism and enthusiasm.

In this context, we wish to focus on the importance of imminent decisions relating to the selection of the new Director-General of DG Research.

This selection has now turned into the ‘message’ not to be missed if we are to regain credibility rudely shattered by past errors: clearly, the absence of any reaction of the scientific community regarding your document, as you mentioned at the meeting, is directly connected to DG Research’s current credibility crisis.

The job description (as advertised in its bureaucratic language) appears as ‘neutral’.

It is therefore essential that, in terms of their profile, experience and qualities, the incoming Director-General is capable of leading by their example and of fitting closely into the logic that you illustrated in your opening speech at the meeting held on March the 24^th (which was also clearly expressed in the document we sent you).

We would like to list the qualities which, we believe, should be deemed essential for the next Director-General to face the challenge of the European Research Area:

• personal credibility beyond all suspicion, in order to immediately re-establish the reputation of the Directorate-General, of its staff and of Community action, both inside and outside the Commission; and skills and personal commitment capable of motivating once again staff and the scientific community towards the new objectives of a European research policy;

• a strong will to re-launch the EU values as the source for a new economic society that respects, at last, the lives and dignity of individuals in a global and sustainable context; and an opening to the necessary changes for a new European dimension in which human beings and the system that surrounds them represent the basis for future researches;

• proven managerial skills for making appropriate use of the resources and knowledge that will be made available through rational, effective, sustainable management; the courage and, above all, the desire to defend DG Research and its staff against the increasingly serious threat of outsourcing under Neil Kinnock’s reforms;

• proven ability in human resource management, as to re-establish dialogue with staff, and put an end to a climate of breaking and division that has been existing for too long;

• a deep knowledge of the mechanisms of international scientific co-operation and of the international role of the European Union;

• the ability to establish and further develop opportunities for synergy with the JRC and other DGs, together with a clear understanding of the possibilities of subsidiarity with actions carried out both in member states and at an international level; an attitude for identifying the role and possible synergies between researches supported by public funds and those directly backed by the private sector.

It is out of discussion that these features must complement the fundamental qualities of honesty, morality, seriousness, independence, impartiality and efficiency.

Last, we shall express our sincere desire that the selection of the new Director General will introduce and mark from your side a genuine wish to ‘start afresh’.

Yours sincerely,

(signed) F. Ianniello

Copies : Romano Prodi, Neil Kinnock, members of staff at DG Research and the JRC

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