INTERVIEW WITH CARLES CANÉ

Doctor Engineer of Telecommunication by the Polytechnic University of Catalonia in 1985. Research professor of the CSIC, currently working in the area of Micro and Nanoelectronics in the National Centre of Microelectronics of Barcelona (IMB-CNM) since 1986. Co-author of over 100 publications. Coordinator and participant of national and international projects and contracts. He participated in Eureka Program Committees (Eurimus, Euripides), National and European Technological Platforms (Genesis, EPoSS) and evaluation of National and International Programs of several countries. Committee expert of the NMBP Program of the EC, Member of the Management Board and the Committee of National Authorities of the JTI ENIAC. Representative of the Ministry in several European committees: High Level Group of Nanotechnology and ERA-PILOT of MicroSystems of the EC, FONE Programme of the European Science Foundation and ERA-NET SIINN on Nanotoxicity and Flag-Era on the Flagships of Graphene and Human Brain.

It is true that I come here very often, both as a researcher participating in projects of the Framework Programme of the European Commission and, as in this case, as a collaborator of the MINECO participating in different committees related to Micro and Nanotechnologies. When you spend several days in Brussels and you have free time, it is a luxury to have these facilities available to prepare the meetings or work for a while in a friendlier place than the hotel room.
I fondly remember the old facilities, when we were coordinators of projects of microelectronics applied to the Food field; but now this Office of the CSIC is much better and we come here even more often to hold project meetings and prepare new proposals.
Besides, there is always the possibility of bumping into Jorge Velasco and the rest of the colleagues, and talk and learn a lot from you guys.

The ERA-NETs are a good tool for the funding agencies of the different European countries and regions to converge in topics of common interest. They are also an instrument for the European Commission to strengthen the ERA, which is the common European research space, and somehow influence the priorities of its members.

Finally, the ERA-NETs that open common calls between different countries are of interest to groups that wish to initiate in international collaborations in a smaller but less competitive environment, such as the usual calls of the European Framework Programme, in this case H2020.

My role in this ERA-NET, EuroNanoMed III (2016-2020), is to participate as a representative of the MINECO in the meetings in which not only administrative issues are tackled, but also technical matters regarding the future joint calls between the funding agencies.

I think it is normal for the Ministry to make good use of the collaboration of experts from different fields in order to have a good scientific representation in the different international committees in which it must participate.

Considering that the CSIC is the largest institution of R&D of our country, it is also normal for it to be one of the institutions that provides the largest number of experts to the MINECO for these activities. Thereby, this gives prestige and visibility to the CSIC, and it also serves the Ministry to which it belongs.

In this case, the advantages lie in the importance of dealing with a sector of high impact such as Nanoelectronics in a singularised manner and separated from the calls of the Framework Programme. Let us think that Nanoelectronics is considered by the European Commission as a Key Enabling Technology (KET) to face the societal challenges of the citizens. There is Nanoelectronics in any instrument or component that surrounds us in our daily life. Thereby, a great initiative had to be established (a JTI: Joint Technology Initiative) to fund big projects that allow ensuring that the European Nanoelectronic Industry continues to move forward, and make it competitive with respect to those of East Asia and North America.

The advantage and disadvantage of these big initiatives is in fact the same thing: they are big projects, of very industrial nature, and it is difficult to participate with your own idea, which is why good networking is necessary in order to be successful.

I have never participated as an evaluator of H2020 projects. I never applied for it. First of all, as I usually ask for projects, I would never be recruited to evaluate in those calls since I would be incompatible. But the main reason is that I don´t like the evaluation system of the Framework Programme at all and, therefore, I don´t want to participate.

It is true that many people look at it the other way around and think that being an evaluator gives you the chance to learn a lot so the next time it is easier to present a winning proposal. The European Commission itself makes propaganda in this sense to make you apply, but this is exactly what I consider outrageous: your project is evaluated by someone who goes there to learn how to present one and then that person can compete with you in the future.

And then there are the professional evaluators, or retired evaluators, who sometimes are the worst, because in order to be able to keep participating they sometimes conduct evaluations in which they want to show that they know more than the applicants, which is usually not true.

In conclusion, there are many evaluators that do their job in a professional way, but in my opinion the system of evaluation itself is not appropriate and, therefore, I´m not interested in getting into that trouble, specially now that the success rates are so low, which means that stress in the evaluations must have increased.

For the next Framework Programme, regardless of the scientific area, I would try to integrate true simplification, both in the calls and in the administrative management, but also for the applicants and not only for the European Commission. In this sense, I think that projects should be funded at a fixed price, agreed in the basis of the work also agreed and not according to the specific expenses, all of which, big and small, must be justified with invoices. In the end, that´s what we all do every day when we buy something: we pay for a price we consider fair for what is offered, and if this is not the case, we buy something else from a different provider, but we never think of asking them to justify the manufacturing costs of the product they are selling.

When we have a salary, it is in exchange for work; nobody asks anybody to justify the expenses of monthly living. Therefore, I don´t understand why in research projects we can´t do something like this: pay an agreed amount of money for an agreed amount of work. Obviously, there are many people, consultant offices… etc., that nowadays feed on how difficult the European Commission makes everything, who would lose their jobs and businesses, but this is not our problem.

Another ridiculous thing is that they have sold the idea of removing Grant Agreement negotiations as an advantage (apart from the reduction in the time needed to sign them). Before this, there were multiple things that could be improved during the negotiation about the work plan associated with the contract. Nowadays, none of what is written in the proposal can be changed before signing the agreement, but then there is an increasing number of Grant Agreement applications, because the one made is imposed and nobody can think that what is written in a proposal could be performed as it was written. Is this really a simplification?

With regard to the scientific aspect, I also think it´s a mistake not to provide strong support to the actions of intermediate TRLs (Technology Readiness Levels), which was formerly known as applied research. With the polarization of the H2020 Framework Programme towards the two extremes of Fundamental Research and Innovation, there is a gap in the middle which, if not properly covered, will be a problem for the future. If there is no high-quality applied research now, it is very unlikely that there will be good industrial research or innovation.

I would also open specific calls to fund second stages of projects that have finished with scientific/technological success, and that innovation and access to the market with more probabilities of success are sought in these second stages. This would be much more efficient than not proposing big projects, as it happens today; the applicants are expected to include the whole chain value, when actually, in many cases, there are partners that are only present in a very passively manner, waiting until the end for the rest of the partners to conduct their developments. And that´s only if they manage to succeed while also meeting the deadlines expected; which is very unlikely to happen in many risky and leading technological areas.

Three-year projects are usually too short to achieve everything that the European Commission expects to be done in a project and it is very difficult for these to have continuity. In my opinion, this is the main reason why research doesn´t reach the market.

Well, I leave it here, and thank you guys for the interview, Carles.