The European Research Council has been inaugurated in Berlin. With a 7.5bn euro six-year budget, the funding body for science in the EU is expected to stoke competition.

Part of its job will be to try to avoid an overlap of research efforts in different places.

Analyst Hans Martens:

“The real issue here is to make Europe, let’s say, more conducive to innovative policies, that we have more innovative societies. The rest of the world reinvents itself all the time, they have a lot R&D but they also really understand to bring it to the market to create wealth for the people.”

Welcomed by German Chancellor Angela Merkel, high-ranking scientists from more than 30 countries were invited to discuss how the ERC can help the development of a knowledge-based society and economy in the international context.

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