The European Science Foundation is an association of its 56 member research councils, academies and institutions devoted to basic scientific research in 20 countries. The ESF assists its Member Organisations in two main ways: by bringing scientists together in its Scientific Programmes, Networks and European Research Conferences, to work on topics of common concern; and through the joint study of issues of strategic importance in European science policy. The scientific work sponsored by ESF includes basic research in the natural and technical sciences, the medical and biosciences, the humanities and social sciences. The ESF maintains close relations with other scientific institutions within and outside Europe. By its activities, ESF adds value by cooperation and coordination across national frontiers and endeavours, offers expert scientific advice on strategic issues, and provides the European forum for fundamental 225018 78064 || EUROPEAN 'UNDATION I quai Lezay-Marnésia 6708 x 88 37 05 32 Tél. 88 76 71 00 Annual Report 1994 fs SERE DR TETRACAICNOE I yee ye ey BW hoa Scr O* eye , ey FhA Se- ey MAfsN iS { ? > i Gsae te Ne * 4 : ay~a~. v e 4o F zs 0 ienesPe ea es) 5 = ” igaha$s % BS ee MOP MET fr4 f -3| b 6 6 [ 1 4 0 d a y J v n u u y ISBN 2-903 148-80-5 CONTENTS a = pa ~ Q THE PRESIDENT’S REPORT ~— . INTRODUCTION SS a) OVERVIEW OF ESF ACTIVITIES ~a pees _ STANDING COMMITTEES \O — Standing Committee for the Social Sciences \O ~A — Standing Committee for the Humanities — European Medical Research Councils — European Science Research Councils ASSOCIATED COMMITTEES — European Space Science Committee (ESSC) — Committee on Radio Astronomy Frequencies (CRAF) — Nuclear Physics European Collaboration Committee (NuPECC) — European Committee on Ocean and Polar Sciences (ECOPS) — Advisory Panel for Environmental Change (APEC) CONTINUING PROGRAMMES SOCIAL SCIENCES — Beliefs in Government (BiG) — Regional and Urban Restructuring in Europe (RURE) — Geographic Information Systems: Data Integration and Data Base Design (GISDATA) — European Management and Organisations in Transition (EMOT) — Learning in Humans and Machines — Environment, Science and Society (ESS) HUMANITIES — Language Typology — The Transformation of the Roman World — The Evolution of Chemistry in Europe 1789-1939 — Concepts and Symbols of the 18th Century in Europe MEDICAL AND LIFE SCIENCES — Molecular Neurobiology of Mental IIness (MNMI) — European Neuroscience Programme (ENP) — Developmental Biology (EDB) — Programme of Fellowships in Toxicology (PFT) NATURAL AND TECHNICAL SCIENCES — European Ice Sheet Modelling Initiative (EISMINT) — European Volcanological Project (EVOP) — EUROPROBE Study of the European Arctic Shelf (SEAS) — European Palaeoclimate and Man (EPC) CONTENTS ~e EN DN ~~ Continuing Programmes (continued) — ~ — Greenland Ice Core Project (GRIP) 5 — Polar North Atlantic Margins (PONAM) Nv) — ESF Consortium for Ocean Drilling (ECOD) Re — Population Biology La) — Environmental Damage and its Assessment (EDA) S — Mathematical Treatment of Free Boundary Problems (FBP) = e — Chemistry of Metals in Biological Systems = — Relativistic Effects in Heavy Element Chemistry and Physics (REHE) x — Kinetic Processes in Minerals and Ceramics — Dynamics of Gas-Surface Interactions — Process Integration in Biochemical Engineering — Study Centres in Non-linear Systems — Biophysics of Photosynthesis — Artificial Biosensing Interfaces (ABI) NEW PROGRAMMES LIFE AND ENVIRONMENT — Tropical Canopy Research — Climate and Fauna: A Database of the Quaternary Mammals of Europe — Airborne Polar Experiment (APE) — Transport Processes in the Atmosphere and Oceans (TAO) PHYSICS AND ENGINEERING — Vapour-phase Synthesis and Processing of Nano-particle Materials (NANO) — Control of Complex Systems (COSY) HUMANITIES — Asian Studies Programme ESF SCIENTIFIC NETWORKS — The History of European Expansion — Crystallography of Biological Macromolecules — Financial Markets — The Semantics of Classical Hebrew — Molecular Dynamics of Biomembranes — Written Language and Literacy — The Classical Tradition in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance — Dynamics of Complex Systems in Biosciences — Metal Clusters — Mediterranean Marine Geosciences — Whole Plant Physiology — HLA and Allergy — Quantum Fluids and Solids — The Palaeolithic Occupation of Europe — Cell Stress Genes and their Protein Products — Impact Cratering and Evolution of the Earth — Highly Structured Stochastic Systems CONTENTS ane ps = = Q — Transitions in Youth — — European-African Songbird Migration a — Databases of Gene Expression during Mammalian Development cs — Fishes of the Antarctic Ocean ea) = =~ NEW NETWORKS Sect ‘© — Oxide Crystals \O — Catalytic Membrane Reactors WA — Systematic Biology — Molecular Biology and Ecology of Plasmid-Mediated Gene Spread — Gender Inequality and the European Regions — Social Transformations in Central and Eastern Europe — National Socialist Occupation Policy NETWORK EVALUATIONS — Transport, Communications and Mobility (NECTAR) — Neuroimmunomodulation —'' Polar Science: — Population Ecology and Genetics EUROPEAN RESEARCH CONFERENCES GENERAL ADMINISTRATION FINANCE AND ACCOUNTS 116 APPENDICES 128 Curtinuing Programmes (continued) - £0 Giventarid Ice Done Project (GRIP) 22 Polar North Atjaatio Murgins (PONAM) 00 ESF Consortium ¥2 Populition Bicloyy Ravirooamental Damage and its Asxessriveait (EDA): Te OR rk rat is OC Mathematical Treatment of Free Boundary Regblems joe _RAROWTSIM Chennistry of Metals in Biological Systems ADayER RE NReAlati vienic Eftects in Heavy Element Chemistry, aval +. Kinetic Processes in. Mineralv and oe % be PYn apines of hi ae Bwea ia [oler eocla‘ odl : *Yoouss Integra : oeh udy Canines i Sot linear S sta zi hio pbysics of Phetosvathe si mista hoe ont Artificial Bicsensing interfaces (ABI Shai sehincsm increta obih dic aneneee 5M e ANoD ENVIRwOeN MENT (AATIAV) cilidom bis enofreoinummo’> —_ i| p0p Tlrtonpaictael unCda nPoapny a:R e sAe aDractha base of the our a ae a q Airborne Polur Experiment (APB) ey Pranspan Processes in the SARI a , q is. s 0o e ai ‘% ANT? ENGINEERING apour-phase Synthesis and, nlcaendial ofN yy foutroloo f Complex setaef one ty a {ANTES | Asien Studies Prograniwne aLA ) ais BSF ss ere ipiia!i C segohabm eyed! aan a ao eno r aeiee St, ers ae vas Ly a i Me ie + i ;4 0 ew ipF i iy siel SOUida: > Cl Ruste eR Ae ct eis ¢ rh bong Denes 7 ort THE PRESIDENT'S REPORT an = oS ~ Q My predecessor as President, Professor 1993 — as President of ESTA, and al Colombo, said in his speech to the Professor Donnelly — a Vice-President of a Assembly in 1993 that he had tried “to ESF — as Vice-President of ESTA also. I ® As revitalise the Foundation’s structures and am myself pleased to be a member of the J to expand its areas of interest ... we still Assembly and Bureau, and our Secretary 7s ™~ have to earn the place in the European General is a member of the Assembly. | Science system that is our due”’. \S It has been very natural that we in ESF ‘© WA The progress in those endeavours is should have thought long and hard about demonstrated in the changes that have our relationships with the European taken place during 1994, both within ESF Union through the Commission. As we and its methods of working, and in the have celebrated our 20th Anniversary, we general debate. have recalled that ESF was founded when the research responsibilities of the The reappraisal of ESF’s strategic mission European Commission were small and proposed by Member Organisations, restricted to the applied technologies. discussed with them and approved at the There was therefore an opportunity and a Assembly of 1993, has begun to be put need for ESF as an organisation to help into effect during the year. The the coming together of European science implementation report gives us a detailed by promoting the collaboration and account of what has been put in place. In mobility of scientists and scholars. particular, each of the Standing Committees has studied how it may best Since that time our place in the world has introduce strategic matters into the areas changed. The Commission’s Framework of science within which we should Programmes have evolved major and operate; and each of the Committees put a comprehensive plans to cover many of report before the Assembly on that Europe’s needs for collaboration in key subject. areas and for promotion of mobility and cohesion within the research community. In terms of the Foundation’s external I think the Commission would agree that relations, the links with the European it has been helpful in the achievement of Union through the Commission have been all this to take advantage of the networks strengthened. We were delighted to have and programmes which ESF had put in Professor Ruberti with us in November as place on a small scale, and indeed the Commissioner for Research; I thanked Commission still does entrust us with a him on behalf of ESF for the keen interest responsibility for Euroconferences in he had taken in ESF, and the care with those areas in which the best results need which he had studied ESF’s proposals for planning on the basis of detailed a more formal participation in the knowledge of the scientific fields and the Commission’s discussions. ESF has scientists for leading them. But they have worked with the Commission to help in now established themselves as a major setting up the new European Science and influence on the funding of European Technology Assembly, ESTA, and Research and Training. ESTA has been specifically in the selection of the first established as an instrument of the members. There is considerable and Commission, as an assembly of gratifying overlap in membership with independent scientists, though they are ESF, not least with Dr Borgman — a not, as in ESF, representatives of Member member of ESF Executive Council until Organisations. What then is the role of © THE PRESIDENT'S REPORT St Hn nv ~— — ~ ESF? Should we in ESF say that we have relate to them. The full development of 2) done our job and now go into graceful European potential requires not only the Qy Y retirement? The research budgets of activities of the Commission working Re member countries have been squeezed from the centre outwards, but others such 8 and they look very carefully and critically as ESF working from the outside inwards. = at expenditures outside domestic = priorities. It is natural for them to ask, The development of European Science is S therefore, whether they need and can therefore so important that there is surely x= afford the ESF as well as the programmes room for more than one body especially if of the Commission. relationships between them can be complementary and symbiotic. But the One doesn’t have to think long about the Commission, ESTA and ESF are by no implication of saying “yes” to this means the only players in this game. question — should we go into retirement — Other bodies have also been formed in to realise that it would be quite the wrong response to the important need to thing to do. Consider my own home represent the voice of science in Europe. organisation, a British Research Council. What are to be the relationships and Should it really — in the Europe of 1994 — divisions of responsibility between them? say that it has no common interest and We acknowledge the Academia Europaea, common policies which it wants to of which Professor Hubert Curien is the develop with sister Research Councils in new President, and the Association of France, Germany, Italy, Spain, European Academies (ALLEA), whose Netherlands, Greece, Sweden, President, Professor Paul Germain we Switzerland, Poland, Hungary and so on? were pleased to have with us at the That the British Research community in Assembly. We join with both these bodies planning its own programme at home in valuing and honouring excellence and should not be taking account of what achievement in science and humanities. other Europeans are doing elsewhere? Or The Board of ESF meets annually with that we should not take a neighbourly the President and Vice-Presidents of the interest and offer our co-operation to Academia Europaea. The Secretary organisations in other countries, whether General and I attended the meeting of still developing scientifically or operating ALLEA in Paris in March 1994, which I at the level of maturity, as they plan to be was honoured to be invited to address. effective and excellent in today’s Also, the European Rectors Conference, competitive world? Obviously not! The of which Professor Seidel who new job description for ESF is to help participated in our Assembly discussion is member organisations to link up and be a Past President, and whom we join in positive to this challenge. honouring education and scholarship. Last but not least is EuroHORCs — the While we applaud and encourage the role European Union Heads of Research of the Commission in co-ordinating Councils which, like ESF, is a coming research collaboration in association with together of research funding the Central Institutions of the European organisations. I am happy to report that, Union — the Council of Ministers and the at a EuroHORCs meeting in November European Parliament — ESF also has a 1994 in Madrid to which the Secretary part to play through the organisations in General and I were invited, ESF and |, member states which by definition are EuroHORCs arrived at a very good plan outside those central institutions but must for future working relationships. It was