In January 1974, the Council of Ministers of the (then) European Economic Community decided to establish a common policy for research. In July 1974, the Berg letter was published in Nature and Science, and led to the Asilomar Conference in February of the following year. 1974 thus offers a convenient starting point for looking back over the events of the first quarter-century of modern biotechnology, and forward to likely developments over the second.

The European Commission participated in the regulatory debate of the post-Asilomar years, a now classic example of applying the “precautionary principle”—start tough, and adapt as you learn. In parallel,the European Commission staff labored 6 years to persuade the Member countries to agree (1981), a first, 15 million ECU program of research and technological development in biomolecular engineering, 1982–1986. A series of biotech programs followed, of rapidly expanding scale, and in the mid-80s were joined by the launch of agro-industrial research programs with a similar rapid growth curve. These two strands, and the strand of biomedical research, were fused within the Fifth Framework Program into a single 5-year program on “Quality of Life and Management of Living Resources”, launched in 1999, with a budget of 2.4 billion euro.

These research efforts formed part of a broader strategy for biotechnology in Europe, engaging a growing range of policy interests, of which agriculture not the least significant. The degree and effectiveness of policy coordination, fluctuating under varying political winds within Europe and beyond, as the number of interested players steadily increased, became significant.

The Commission's futures group, FAST, in 1982, made a 30-year projection for “Bio-society”, summarized in four words: molecularization, informatization, dematerialization, and globalization. That anticipated neatly the advent of the Internet and the Web, the era of genomics, and the drive to sustainability, based upon what Rachel Carson called for in 1963: “biological solutions based on understanding the living organisms [we] seek to control” (Silent Spring).

The informatization of the life sciences and their applications is a transition with profound implications for even the most sensitive and conservative sectors, such as our food supply, and it has started contentiously. But this transition is irreversible, pervasive, and on balance, will be hugely beneficial—not least, as the essential condition for the shift to sustainability in agriculture and industry. It will preoccupy us for the coming quarter-century, notwithstanding some current difficulties of misunderstanding, and of deliberate and foolish stigmatization: Knowledge may not be toxic but it can provoke indigestion.

The EU has become a significant player not only in the scale and coordination of research, but in the policy context that influences and constrains that research, and in the battle for hearts and minds, in measuring and responding to public opinion, responding to the demands of Parliament and Council, and countering misunderstanding and misinformation. As it expands toward a membership of 30 countries, integrating ever more members of the European family of nations in an increasingly knowledge-based and open global economy, the science community must learn to communicate more effectively, if they wish to receive the tax-payer's euro, and see the fruits of their research accepted and digested with enthusiasm.