Scientists petition for increased EC funding for research

["Dagmar M. Meyer" <dmeyer@DROPMEmariecurie.org>]

Dear All,

please find below a letter by Frank Gannon, Executive Director of EMBO,
regarding an online petition on the EMBO website asking for a significant
increase in the budget for the Seventh Framework Programme. I encourage
you to connect to the website and to sign the petition if you agree with
it. Please also pass on the information about this petition to your
colleagues, for example by posting it on relevant mailing lists.

Kind regards,
Dagmar

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Scientists petition for increased EC funding for research

Dear Colleague,

The collapse of the discussions on the EU budget has been highlighted in
media. What receives less attention is the fact that preparatory
discussions on a new budget were pointing towards a very major reduction
on the doubling of funds for Framework 7 that had been requested by the
Commission. Included in this funding were increases for the Marie Curie
programme, expansion of the standard Framework activities and,
significantly, the funding of the European Research Council (ERC).

All of this is now at risk and the voices of scientists need to be heard.
As one effort to ensure that the politicians get a message from the
scientific community, we, supported by ELSF, (European Life Sciences
Forum)
(http://www.elsf.org) and ISE, (Initiative for Science in Europe)
(http://www.initiative-science-europe.org) have opened an online petition
on the EMBO website.

If you are in agreement with the petition, sign it at
http://www.embo.org/petition/petition.php

Please ensure that all of the scientists in your institute are aware of it
and encourage them also to sign. This is a case where numbers and a rapid
reaction are very important! Please note also that ELSO, (European Life
Scientists Organization) have prepared a letter to be sent to Ministers of
Research to underline the importance of the ERC.
http://ultr23.vub.ac.be/petition/

This is your opportunity to influence the future of research so I suggest
that you act on these initiatives now.

Prof. Frank Gannon
Executive Director, EMBO

European Molecular Biology Organization
Postfach 1022.40 D-69012 Heidelberg
Meyerhofstrasse 1, D-69117 Heidelberg
Tel: +49 6221 889 1 102
Fax: +49 6221 889 1 202
E-mail: Frank.Gannon@DROPMEembo.org
www.embo.org