Munich

The Danish Biotechnology Instrument Center (DABIC), set up in 2000 to support research into genomics and proteomics, could face closure for want of funds to cover its running costs.

Based at the University of Southern Denmark in Odense, the centre was established with a three-year, €18-million (US$20-million) grant. But it may now fall victim to a failed government policy.

In the late 1990s, the Danish government introduced about 50 highly specific research programmes, chosen by the national research councils, at a total cost of about €270 million. The government had hoped that universities would take over the running costs of successful centres created under the scheme. But the universities say they cannot afford to do so, after the government and its successor (elected in 2001) failed to increase their budgets even in line with inflation.

The centres see little hope in turning to the national research councils for help. Although the councils are enjoying a temporary increase in funding — thanks to a share of profits from the sale of telecommunications licences — they cannot allocate the operational money needed to keep big centres going.

The DABIC is the largest of the centres. It involves 16 research groups across five universities, each of which bought expensive equipment and facilities. “Many of our groups will simply not be able to keep this equipment in service,” says Peter Roepstorff, the centre's director. “Already we are losing people with expertise.”

Jens Christian Djurhuus, head of Denmark's medical research council and director of the Institute for Experimental Clinical Research at the University of Aarhus, which hosts one of the DABIC's groups, says that his dual role makes him “ambivalent” about the situation. “The research councils were never particularly happy about having so many programmes with money earmarked for very specific projects, because there was not enough competition for each of them,” he says. “But we were also unhappy when the former government lost interest in them, and we are worried about how the best ones can continue now.”