[naturenews] from [nature.com]
[naturenews]
Published online 30 November 2009 | Nature | doi:10.1038/462552a
News
Spanish awards rekindle old rivalries
Infrastructure programme steers substantial resources to major cities, upsetting some regional centres.
Lucas Laursen
{{A University of Barcelona project has won the status of ‘Campus of International Excellence’.}
P. Aprahamian/CORBIS}
An ambitious effort to develop Spanish universities into campuses that are among Europe's best has stoked some long-standing regional rivalries.
On 26 November, the government announced which universities would benefit from the inaugural round of an annual programme called the Campus of International Excellence, administered jointly by the Ministry of Science and Innovation and the Ministry of Education. The €150-million (US$226-million) scheme is designed to steer resources, in the form of government seed money and loans, to the strategic infrastructure projects with the most potential to aid teaching and research.
But with €73 million of this year's financing going to just five proposals from institutions in Madrid and Barcelona, the awards have already provoked complaints of regional bias in a country that has a long history of wrangling over the way that resources tend to be channelled towards its metropolitan centres.
Following the Ministry of the President's announcement of the competition on 23 July, an initial selection round saw 51 entrants share €53 million in seed funding to develop their proposals. The 18 winners were then divided into three tiers: the five Campuses of International Excellence; four Regional Campuses of Excellence, which share €30.1 million; and nine Promising Projects, mostly awarded between €2 million and €4 million (see graphic).
Regional universities dominate this lowest tier. "We're discouraged," says agricultural engineer Juan Julía Igual, rector of the Polytechnic University of Valencia, which won a total of €8 million for its plan to create a campus based around health and sustainability research. "The goal is positive, but the way it proceeded is unacceptable."
Julía Igual is particularly critical of the labelling system used to rank the proposals. "Classifying institutions as Promising Projects makes us sound almost like the junior football leagues," he says. "Valencia Polytechnic appears ahead of its Madrid and Barcelona equivalents in international rankings, so I find it hard to believe that they were the only Spanish campuses of international excellence."
Call for transparency
Julía Igual says that in the future, the government should use a more transparent competition system that is based on international ranking models, and it should raise the overall budget. "The funding agencies need to recognize the same reality the international rankings do." However, Ministry of Education spokesman Fernando Herranz counters that "the objective of this plan was not to create another ranking". And responding to the charges of regional bias, he adds that "with more than 50 applicants, not everybody can win".
María José Alonso, vice-rector for research at the University of Santiago de Compostela, is involved in the university's €150-million 'Campus of Life' campaign. The project was awarded €7.5 million, she thinks, because it focuses on the institute's strongest disciplines and draws in its neighbours and other agencies. "It was obvious we weren't going to win it all from this ministry call," she says. Despite the modest size of the award, she says, "we understand it is a stimulus and a stamp of approval from the central government. It will help us negotiate with the regional government for even more support," she says.
The goal of creating centres of excellence was partly inspired by Germany's Excellence Initiative, a competition between universities to win elite status that recently had its €2.7-billion budget for the period 2012–17 confirmed (see Nature 462, 24; 2009).
But the programmes have different goals, says Matthias Kleiner, who oversees Germany's excellence initiative and is president of the nation's Research Foundation (DFG). Kleiner, who was a member of the international committee asked to evaluate the Spanish proposals, points out that the German initiative focuses on research, whereas teaching is a very important part of the Spanish one.
[naturenews]
Published online 30 November 2009 | Nature | doi:10.1038/462553a
News
US bioethics commission promises policy action
Obama launches wide-ranging advisory body.
Vicki Brower
{{Amy Gutmann is to head the US bioethics commission.}
Univ. Pennsylvania}
Five months after abruptly dismantling the bioethics advisory council left by his predecessor, US President Barack Obama last week created a new bioethics commission that will move beyond the issues that consumed previous panels, such as stem cells and cloning. Based within the Department of Health and Human Services, the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues is explicitly charged with recommending legislative and regulatory action and promises to have more influence on policy.
Bioethical, social and legal questions relating to genomics and behavioural research are all on the commission's agenda. So are issues of intellectual property, scientific integrity and conflicts of interest in research.
The contrast with the previous bioethics council established by President George W. Bush is stark. Bioethicist George Annas of Boston University, Massachusetts, has described that council, which existed in two incarnations, as having a "narrow, embryo-centric agenda", focusing largely on the research implications of questions such as the moral status of the embryo and when life begins (see Nature 431, 19–20; 2004).
In another break with the past, Obama has chosen not to appoint bioethicists to lead the commission. Instead, it will be chaired by political theorist Amy Gutmann, president of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, and its vice-chair will be materials scientist James Wagner, president of Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia.
Gutmann's work deals with deliberative democracy, and using reasoned argument to depolarize politics. Wagner served at the Food and Drug Administration's Center for Devices and Radiological Health for a decade, and now, as Emory's president, stresses that ethical engagement is integral to the university's strategic vision.
"The appointments of Gutmann and Wagner reinforce the expectation that this commission will seek to provide practical, actionable guidance to the administration and the country," says Ruth Faden, executive director of the Berman Institute of Bioethics at the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland. "This is a wise way to structure the leadership of the commission."
The remaining members of the 13-strong commission are expected to include bioethicists specializing in medicine and law, along with experts chosen from the fields of science, engineering, theology and philosophy. Between one and three of those members will be appointed from the government's executive branch. "These appointments, and the council's place in the executive branch of the government, suggests that it will be more than just a talking shop, with perhaps a significant influence over practice," says political theorist Michael Gottsegen of Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island.
Annas believes that the commission may not be sufficiently independent of government. "Bioethics advisory commissions should be totally free-standing, and not linked to the government and presidential terms, in order to avoid doing 'Republican' or 'Democratic' bioethics," he says.
The commission's wider scope will also force some tough choices in deciding priorities, says Annas. "Doctors' [involvement in] force-feeding prisoners at Guantanamo, doctors and torture, and international human-research rules are pressing issues of our day which demand our attention," he says. Among the other issues he thinks the commission should juggle are new reproductive technologies, an overhaul of informed-consent procedures and — perhaps most immediate — fairer ways to apportion health care.
[naturenews]
Published online 30 November 2009 | Nature | doi:10.1038/462552a
News
Spanish awards rekindle old rivalries
Infrastructure programme steers substantial resources to major cities, upsetting some regional centres.
Lucas Laursen
{{A University of Barcelona project has won the status of ‘Campus of International Excellence’.}
P. Aprahamian/CORBIS}
An ambitious effort to develop Spanish universities into campuses that are among Europe's best has stoked some long-standing regional rivalries.
On 26 November, the government announced which universities would benefit from the inaugural round of an annual programme called the Campus of International Excellence, administered jointly by the Ministry of Science and Innovation and the Ministry of Education. The €150-million (US$226-million) scheme is designed to steer resources, in the form of government seed money and loans, to the strategic infrastructure projects with the most potential to aid teaching and research.
But with €73 million of this year's financing going to just five proposals from institutions in Madrid and Barcelona, the awards have already provoked complaints of regional bias in a country that has a long history of wrangling over the way that resources tend to be channelled towards its metropolitan centres.
Following the Ministry of the President's announcement of the competition on 23 July, an initial selection round saw 51 entrants share €53 million in seed funding to develop their proposals. The 18 winners were then divided into three tiers: the five Campuses of International Excellence; four Regional Campuses of Excellence, which share €30.1 million; and nine Promising Projects, mostly awarded between €2 million and €4 million (see graphic).
Regional universities dominate this lowest tier. "We're discouraged," says agricultural engineer Juan Julía Igual, rector of the Polytechnic University of Valencia, which won a total of €8 million for its plan to create a campus based around health and sustainability research. "The goal is positive, but the way it proceeded is unacceptable."
Julía Igual is particularly critical of the labelling system used to rank the proposals. "Classifying institutions as Promising Projects makes us sound almost like the junior football leagues," he says. "Valencia Polytechnic appears ahead of its Madrid and Barcelona equivalents in international rankings, so I find it hard to believe that they were the only Spanish campuses of international excellence."
Call for transparency
Julía Igual says that in the future, the government should use a more transparent competition system that is based on international ranking models, and it should raise the overall budget. "The funding agencies need to recognize the same reality the international rankings do." However, Ministry of Education spokesman Fernando Herranz counters that "the objective of this plan was not to create another ranking". And responding to the charges of regional bias, he adds that "with more than 50 applicants, not everybody can win".
María José Alonso, vice-rector for research at the University of Santiago de Compostela, is involved in the university's €150-million 'Campus of Life' campaign. The project was awarded €7.5 million, she thinks, because it focuses on the institute's strongest disciplines and draws in its neighbours and other agencies. "It was obvious we weren't going to win it all from this ministry call," she says. Despite the modest size of the award, she says, "we understand it is a stimulus and a stamp of approval from the central government. It will help us negotiate with the regional government for even more support," she says.
The goal of creating centres of excellence was partly inspired by Germany's Excellence Initiative, a competition between universities to win elite status that recently had its €2.7-billion budget for the period 2012–17 confirmed (see Nature 462, 24; 2009).
But the programmes have different goals, says Matthias Kleiner, who oversees Germany's excellence initiative and is president of the nation's Research Foundation (DFG). Kleiner, who was a member of the international committee asked to evaluate the Spanish proposals, points out that the German initiative focuses on research, whereas teaching is a very important part of the Spanish one.
[naturenews]
Published online 30 November 2009 | Nature | doi:10.1038/462553a
News
US bioethics commission promises policy action
Obama launches wide-ranging advisory body.
Vicki Brower
{{Amy Gutmann is to head the US bioethics commission.}
Univ. Pennsylvania}
Five months after abruptly dismantling the bioethics advisory council left by his predecessor, US President Barack Obama last week created a new bioethics commission that will move beyond the issues that consumed previous panels, such as stem cells and cloning. Based within the Department of Health and Human Services, the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues is explicitly charged with recommending legislative and regulatory action and promises to have more influence on policy.
Bioethical, social and legal questions relating to genomics and behavioural research are all on the commission's agenda. So are issues of intellectual property, scientific integrity and conflicts of interest in research.
The contrast with the previous bioethics council established by President George W. Bush is stark. Bioethicist George Annas of Boston University, Massachusetts, has described that council, which existed in two incarnations, as having a "narrow, embryo-centric agenda", focusing largely on the research implications of questions such as the moral status of the embryo and when life begins (see Nature 431, 19–20; 2004).
In another break with the past, Obama has chosen not to appoint bioethicists to lead the commission. Instead, it will be chaired by political theorist Amy Gutmann, president of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, and its vice-chair will be materials scientist James Wagner, president of Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia.
Gutmann's work deals with deliberative democracy, and using reasoned argument to depolarize politics. Wagner served at the Food and Drug Administration's Center for Devices and Radiological Health for a decade, and now, as Emory's president, stresses that ethical engagement is integral to the university's strategic vision.
"The appointments of Gutmann and Wagner reinforce the expectation that this commission will seek to provide practical, actionable guidance to the administration and the country," says Ruth Faden, executive director of the Berman Institute of Bioethics at the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland. "This is a wise way to structure the leadership of the commission."
The remaining members of the 13-strong commission are expected to include bioethicists specializing in medicine and law, along with experts chosen from the fields of science, engineering, theology and philosophy. Between one and three of those members will be appointed from the government's executive branch. "These appointments, and the council's place in the executive branch of the government, suggests that it will be more than just a talking shop, with perhaps a significant influence over practice," says political theorist Michael Gottsegen of Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island.
Annas believes that the commission may not be sufficiently independent of government. "Bioethics advisory commissions should be totally free-standing, and not linked to the government and presidential terms, in order to avoid doing 'Republican' or 'Democratic' bioethics," he says.
The commission's wider scope will also force some tough choices in deciding priorities, says Annas. "Doctors' [involvement in] force-feeding prisoners at Guantanamo, doctors and torture, and international human-research rules are pressing issues of our day which demand our attention," he says. Among the other issues he thinks the commission should juggle are new reproductive technologies, an overhaul of informed-consent procedures and — perhaps most immediate — fairer ways to apportion health care.
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