National science policy coordination in the European Community

In January 1974 the Council of Ministers of the European Community issued a resolution calling for the coordination of the science and technology policies of the member countries. This initiative came after several years of largely unrewarded efforts by the European institutions to bring a measure of Community-wide coherence in national R&D programs and objectives. Despite the development of alternative decision-making and implementation procedures, the Community's impact on national activities was on the whole limited in scope, confined to programs of marginal importance and more concerned with the joint execution of specific research tasks than with the political motives and intentions of the member governments. A review of the 1974 resolution's effects, principally through the work of the CREST committee, demonstrates that the multiple obstacles to policy coordination have yet to be overcome. These obstacles stem from a) varying conceptions of the policy coordination task, b) the discrepancies and inadequacies in national science policy formulation, c) deficiencies in the perspectives and procedures of Commission officials and national delegations, and d) a variety of constraints which restrict the domain of possible Community intervention.