Paris

Hard times ahead? The European Bioinformatics Institute in Cambridge faces a funding problem. Credit: HARPER/EBI

Several major European life-science research facilities face financial crisis following the European Commission's decision not to fund their operational costs out of the fifth five-year Framework programme (FP5).

One facility directly affected is the European Bioinformatics Institute (EBI) in Cambridge, which forms Europe's main database infrastructure for molecular biology and biotechnology. An outstation of the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL), EBI has relied on the European Union for almost half its budget, but now finds that this tap has suddenly been switched off.

Other facilities affected are the recently created European Mouse Mutant Archive, based at Monterotondo near Rome (see next page), and the Drosophila stock centres at Umeå in Sweden and Szeged in Hungary.

Under instruction from member states, the European Commission published a new rule in March stating that core funding and operational costs for infrastructure should not qualify for support from FP5, which runs from 1998 to 2002. Member states wanted to control investment decisions on large science facilities themselves, and preferred such funding to be provided directly.

But EBI failed to recognize the rule's significance, especially since research infrastructure was made a priority in FP5, with funding rising from 200 million euros (US$212 million) in the previous Framework programme to 500 million euros for this one. EBI had not read the small print specifying that such funds would be used only for research projects and to fund researchers from one country working at facilities in another.

Realization dawned over the summer, when the European Commission rejected EBI's applications for Framework funds. No one doubts the scientific excellence of EBI, says one commission official. “They were simply outside the scope of funding.”

Embarrassed commission officials are now advising EBI on how to rewrite their proposals to include areas that will meet the new funding criteria. But one official admits that sleights of hand, such as dressing up infrastructure costs as research projects, are no longer an option. A spate of financial scandals prompted the commission to resign en masse earlier this year, and in the new squeaky-clean climate the commission is applying the rules to the letter.

As a result, funding for EBI from existing European Union contracts will dry up at the end of the year, and EBI accountants estimate that the shortfall will form 44 per cent of its budget. If the immediate cash-flow problem is not resolved, “we will have to abandon major projects like the DNA database, the draft human genome, the macromolecular structure database and the microarray expression database,” warns Graham Cameron, who jointly heads the institute with Michael Ashburner, professor of biology at the University of Cambridge.

The crisis has come at a bad time for EBI. Demand for its services is growing at 15 per cent every month, while the Drosophila genome is likely to be available in February, with a draft of the human genome in the spring (see Nature 401, 729–730; 1999).

The need for EBI to expand is widely supported (see Correspondence, page 12). The institute and many in the community it serves believe its annual budget should be doubled from its current $8 million if it is to remain competitive with its US equivalent, the National Center for Biotechnology Information, which has a budget of $19 million.

The EMBL board will meet later this month to try to drum up money from its member states to tide EBI over until a permanent solution is found. Most observers are optimistic that the money will be found, as they argue that it would be unthinkable to let EBI sink.

“Everyone realizes that this is really a small amount of money for so many countries to put together to keep Europe competitive,” says Julio Celis, chairman of the EMBL council and head of the Danish Centre for Human Genome Research in Århus.

But one official at the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO) is more cautious: “Given the vagaries of European politics, I would not be overly optimistic that the member states will say, ‘fine, let's pay up’.”

Since EBI was created in 1994, it has been funded five parts by EMBL, five parts by the European Commission and two parts by industry. But there is no alternative plan now that the commission has pulled out.

Kafatos: calls for more coordination.

Fotis Kafatos, director of EMBO, says that the fundamental issue is whether Europe will invest in essential structures for molecular biology and biotechnology, and that the challenge for European science is to co-ordinate national, multilateral and pan-European systems.

“There is no clear mechanism for creating pan-European infrastructures that are globally competitive, because the funding is so fragmented,” adds Cameron.

Commission officials say that, in principle, the treaties regulating the European Union give it a clear mandate to plan and fund research infrastructure — the principle of subsidiarity says it should support activities that are best carried out at the European level rather than at the level of member states.

But the political reality is that member states are loath to give the commission such powers. The favoured model is one in which transnational initiatives are organized under multilateral accords between member states — the so-called ‘variable geometry’.

According to one commission official, member states have been keen to keep decisions on big science facilities, such as the European Spallation Source and new synchrotrons, out of the commission's hands. Member states believe they are better at controlling budgets and accountability.

The challenge is to devise a mechanism for stable long-term funding to secure EBI's future as a globally competitive organization, says Ashburner. The United Kingdom is said to be ready to lead efforts to achieve this.

Britain is unlikely to contest the ruling against supporting EBI, as it was among the countries most against funding infrastructure directly, says a commission official.

Discussions are taking place on several levels. Britain's Medical Research Council is brokering discussions with other European research councils for a rescue plan, and is seeking support from governments.

The Wellcome Trust, which contributed half of the initial construction costs of EBI (see Nature 361, 383; 1993), is also being mentioned as a possible backer, although its support may depend on governments agreeing a long-term plan for EBI.

A meeting of the EMBL council in March will seek support for EBI from its member states. EMBL's current five-year plan for its programme and budget ends in December 2000 and, if a solution is to be found within EMBL, European member states will need to agree to a funding envelope for EBI in the next five-year plan.

“We need a long-term political commitment,” says Ashburner. One option member states may consider is to fund EBI as a separate entity within a new multilateral accord.

Celis believes that the crisis has precipitated a long-overdue discussion on securing a stable and adequately funded structure for EBI and for other European-level facilities. Project funding is no way to run large infrastructure projects, he says. “What is needed is a mechanism involving stable partners, stable financing and long-term commitments.”