Trust Researchers

A declaration to the attention of the
European Council of Ministers and the Parliament.

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Comments from Spain

130 comments.  (Note: Some comments are not made public accessible.)


4 May 14:37   Spain   Agencia Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas y Universidad de Sevilla  Aurelio Serrano
After nearly 30 years of experience in academic teaching and scientific research I can say that we lose more and more time on paperwork and bureaucracy tasks that consume an enormous effort that could be spent on real science. If this does not change soon, I am sure that together we will kill the goose of the golden eggs.

19 Feb 09:55   Spain   Aktina Consulting, SL  Γιώργος Κονταξάκης
To my opinion, the worse is the success rate in the various FP7 and other related calls. If you manage to be within the 10%-15% of the fortunate consortia that get the funding, then justifying the costs is just a small part of the game - think on the huge amounts of deliverables to produce (most without real value), the infinite number of unnecessary meetings, reports, etc.

17 Feb 11:39   Spain   CABD  Eduardo Rodenas
Simplifying bureoucratic protocols will lead to a more extensive dedication to research

22 Mar 08:26   Spain   Carlos III Institute of Health  Pablo Martinez-Martin
Putting together the time spent along the year to complete forms for grant calls, some teams lose months. An example: curriculum vitae forms are (even within the same country) completely different among institutions. Main dedication of scientists should be science, not bureaucracy.

23 Feb 12:04   Spain   Catalan Institute of Oncology  Silvia de Sanjose
My group has participated in several EU grants. The bulk of burocracy is excessive and limitis teh integration of gruops with little potential to have administrative help.

11 Feb 11:04   Spain   CDTI  Serafin De la Concha
Even more important than the declaration is: a) to have a simple common set of rules of participation (IPR, costs definition, evaluation criteria, reporting) unified for all the activities financed total or partially with the Framework Programmes, b) clarify the RTD European Lansdcape giving coherence and complementarity to the ongoing and proposed initiatives. I thank the Commission for the best practices that has produced managing FP.

19 Feb 09:49   Spain   Centre Nacional de Microelectrónica IMB-CNM (CSIC)  Xavier Jordà
Senior researches spent too many time in administrative and bureaucratic tasks.
Unvaluable experience and efforts are lost for true research and development activities.

1 Mar 12:24   Spain   Centreo de Biología Molecular Severo Ochoa  Ignacio Vicente-Sandoval
Nobody, exception made of the bureaucrats, benefits from the cumbersome bureaucracy implemented by the administrative body that manages the European research programs. Transparency is attainable without bureaucracy. Science should be managed by active scientists not by bad scientists converted into bureaucrats and enjoying questionable privileges.

1 Mar 12:03   Spain   Centro De Biologia Molecular Severo Ochoa  Esteban Domingo
Simplify bureaucracy. Scientists should use their time for research to have a competitive EU.

22 Mar 12:52   Spain   Centro de Biologia Molecular Severo Ochoa  Francisco Wandosell
We need more effective, reliable and stable funding for improve R&D in Europe.

5 Mar 09:01   Spain   Centro Nacional de Biotecnologia CSIC  Victor de Lorenzo
I am a firm advocate of the knowledge-based bioeconomy (KBBE) as one of the pillars of the sustainable european society of the future. I am convinced that simplification of the FWP management procedures will encourage many of the best brains of our continent to join this effort -instead of being deterred by the complexity of the current state of affairs.

18 Feb 10:50   Spain   Centro Nacional de Biotecnología, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, CNB/CSIC  Jose R Valverde
Addressing the problem at the European level will be pointless unless it is also addressed at a local level. There are several layers of control, and all should be addressed harmonically.

16 Feb 13:19   Spain   Centro Nacional de Biotecnololgía, CSIC  Jose Casasnovas
Not just simplifications, but a different type of calls are need. Calls should be more open, not that specific. Grant fromat should be similar to the Human Frontiers Program: about 4 groups with a single goal.

18 Feb 14:55   Spain   Centro Nacional de Investigaciones Cardiovasculares  Gabriel Bergazyn Liberman
I wish it works!!!

18 Feb 19:27   Spain   Centro Nacional de Investigaciones Cardiovasculares  Andres Hidalgo
The administrative rules, added to the scientific duties makes it really hard for young investigators like me, who wish to focus as much as possible, and with all strength, in the science. After all, we are paid for and expect to act as researchers, that´s what I hope the Council will consider.

18 Feb 14:25   Spain   Centro Nacional de Investigaciones Cardiovasculares (CNIC)  José Luis de la Pompa
According to my experience with FP6 and FP7 grants, I think that if we want to make competitive research in Europe the burocratic burden of EU grants should be reduced, as well as the political issues that are required to obtain a grant, and that are not necessarily related with the quality of the science.

23 Mar 11:43   Spain   CIC nanogune  Alexander Bittner
I read a few comments, and found each single one reflecting my experiences. One thing to add, there are some
research groups that deliberately do not take part in EU programmes because of the cumbersome application and
administration procedures.

29 Jun 14:57   Spain   CIEMAT  Fernando Larcher
Simpler is more efficient and productive

18 Feb 11:00   Spain   CITA-DGA  Ramon Aragüés
As coordinator of FP6 projects, I fully agrre with this declaration

18 Feb 21:59   Spain   CNIO  Francisco X Real
I think that the statement should be even more assertive: we want research to be funded on the basis of excellence and we want a long-term programme without so much lobbying

16 Feb 11:36   Spain   Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas  Mark J van Raaij
The EU should change their funding of scientific and technological projects to grants, rather than
contracts.

17 Feb 12:02   Spain   Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas  Federico Valverde
Scientific budget should be managed by scientist, with the help of politicians, manager and administrative personnel, but always with the scientific criteria of excellence, objectivity and transparency.

18 Feb 16:00   Spain   Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas  Antonio Granell
Time is an important assest (maybe the most important). And as any other valuable it is so because it is limited. We have limited time. The longer it takes to go through all the unnecessary paperwork the less time we have to do what we are suppose to be doing: doing research.

19 Feb 09:22   Spain   Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas  Agustín González-Elipe
Application and justification procedures should be simplified and the evaluation criteria focused on the scientific quality of the work. Multinational cooperation should be strengthen with the development of new funding tools involving several EU countries

23 Feb 15:00   Spain   Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas  Jan Siegel
In Spain we already face unneccesarily complex financial and burocratic regulations without sufficient administrative support. As a consequence, we spend most of our time as researchers dealing with this problems ourselves and little time is left to perform research. At some point our hope was that applying for european funding that this aspect could improve. But this proved wrong, administrative and financial aspects on a european level are comparably complex, redundant and even more so have to be dealt with by the researchers since most of the administrative staff at our institutes does lack sufficient knowledge of the Englsih language to be able to understand the multitude of forms required.

3 Mar 16:55   Spain   Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas  Juan M. Lopez
I fully agree with the declaration

8 Mar 08:53   Spain   Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas  Yolanda Gogorcena
Web pages and registrations are very complicate.

23 Apr 09:49   Spain   Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas  Manuel Zúñiga
Many times I have wondered whether the EU research program is about research at all or just a means of getting as many bureaucrats as possible in the payroll. I am glad to learn that many more people shared this misgiving.

7 May 11:51   Spain   Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas  Julio Escalona
Whether at the European or national level, scientific research of all kinds is greatly hampered by a general lack of trust from administrations towards researchers, which results in the need to spend much valuable time and energy in complying with huge number of administrative requisites. The assumption seems to be that researchers are natural born delinquers that will misuse -or worse- their funding unless stopped by a super-cop-like pile of forms. Needles to say that more often than not those regulations take little notice of the actual context and needs of individual research projects, so you are forced to avoid risks and only investigate in those fields where expenses will fit nicely enough administrative expectations.

16 Feb 18:27   Spain   CONSEJO SUPERIOR INVESTIGACIONES CIENTIFICAS  ANA ALLENDE
The time reserachers spend in administrative issues is time lost for research

17 Feb 12:08   Spain   Consejo Superior Investigaciones Científicas  Alfredo Arche
Members of research groups are asked to increasingly burdensome administrative tasks in detriment of their real goal: research. This situation needs a radical change and I ask the european authorities to take inmediate action on this topic.

4 May 22:16   Spain   CONSEJO SUPERIOR INVESTIGACIONES CIENTIFICAS  Ramon Soriguer
Support to reduce the burocracy in the EU scientific activities.

1 Mar 17:26   Spain   CRG  Thomas Graf
Making the procedures for grant applications much shorter and simpler would be of great benefit for European science. Likewise, the EU could chose among a much larger number of qualified reviewers if it would simplify their work.

18 Mar 12:19   Spain   CRG  Miguel Beato
I am a strong supporter of the ERC project, but it needs to be liberated from the ominous burocratic burden of EU regulations. Excellence is incompatible with burocracy. If the ERC manages to reduce the paper work, it should progressively take control of a larger proportion of the EU research budget. This is the only strategy for Europe to maintain a significant contribution to the advancement of knowledge.

12 May 16:04   Spain   CSIC  Emilio Muñoz
Research in Europe and even more in some European countries such as Spain is suffering from strong bureaucratic burdens.Under this situation, political discourses about the need to change the economic model towards one based on scie4ntific knowledge, knowledge tranfer and innovation are not only cynical but without any sense.

3 Mar 16:55   Spain   CSIC - Instituto de Quimica Fisica Rocasolano  Pablo Echenique
A complementary measure would be to provide more administrative staff so that the administratives/scientists ratio is higher than now.

6 Apr 15:40   Spain   CSIC-Estación Biológica de Doñana  Rafael Rodriguez-Clemente
Administrative burden is consuming a significant fraction of the time devoting to implement european research projects and, for this reason, it is pulling away of the Framework Programmes excellent reseachers while it is stimulating a new business of EC hermeneutic. The EC has to reconsider seriously the global picture of estimulating participation in the FP by really putting research work as the main activity in a frame of reliable and simple administrative procedures.

4 May 14:25   Spain   Estación Biologica de Doñana (CSIC)  Javier Juste
Please facilitate our work not the opposite with piles of bureaucracy

21 Mar 19:11   Spain   Faculty of Economics. University of Santiago de Compostela  Maria-Carmen Guisan
Due to lack of support my team has experienced too many difficulties. I have reached a top position among 20 most popular Economics researchers, out of more than 20000 economists at the international bibliographic net Ideas.Repec, by the total number of downloads of my articles, in spite of lack of support from European Union. I am in favor of more transparency, more fair distribution, more support to researchers and less bureaucracy in European Funding activities. Economics research is important for European Development and should be supported by EU as we request in our Blog: http://euroamericanassociation.blogspot.com

1 May 10:19   Spain   Faculty of Sciences, Vigo University  George Dragos Zaharescu
EU research founding is highly inaccessible for early career researchers (PhD and Postdocs), not to say unattractive. This is reflected mainly in terms and conditions of calls. There is far too much paperwork and requirements which are most of the time discouraging. Major reform/simplification of the system is needed for research and networking to go efficient.

11 Mar 16:44   Spain   Fundació Barcelona Media  Pau Arumí
Simplification of beaurocracy is a must for a productive european research

3 Mar 22:23   Spain   Fundacion I+D en Nanotecnologia (FideNa)  Ernesto Bravo
It defies logic that entities need to hire external professional consultants or specific non scientific positions within their organization only to handle this, because it is impossible to get to find your way in between the different calls and the requirements for each one, and when you will be elegible and when not... It is an impossible jungle. The way it should work: if you want something funded, just make an initial proposal in the shape of a presentation (with a minimun content common to all of them), submit it, and receive feedback within 2 to 4 weeks on whether the commission might find your project interesting or not, and if it does find it interesting initially, telling you the next steps to take, what to fill, where to address it and who is going to evaluate it and follow up, and what kind of funding you may expect for this. So, instead of a bunch of roads into the commision bag, only one wide road to enter, and selection and direction in a second phase.

25 Feb 17:46   Spain   General Directorate for Universities and Research, Regional Government of Madrid  Beatriz Presmanes-Arizmendi
Harmonised standards of research funding at European, national level and regional level in order to facilitate a real european research area, to promote joint and co-ordinate management and research funding
At the same time promote e-government sharing technical instruments for doing it efficiently

4 Mar 09:54   Spain   I.B.G.M  Isabel Fernandez
I´m totally agree with this excellent initiative as any for reducing bureaucratic requirements of applications for research funding. It is too expensive time-consumers!

22 Feb 18:34   Spain   ICTA - Universitat Autonoma Barcelona  Mario Giampietro
I strongly support this initiative. I have been working in EU projects since 1993, and getting up in the ladder of responsibility roles (from subcontractor, to partner, to coordinator) I could appreciate the total lack of effectiveness of the red tape imposed on us, which has the only effect of wasting time and money. If one gets a big project one has to pay a full time person dealing with the bureaucracy and later on it cannot take full advantage of the money for the lack of flexibility of the current systems. What is really irritating is that the huge pile of paperwork, which we are required to do, is clearly irrelevant and useless.

13 Jun 17:49   Spain   ICTA, UNiversitat Autonoma de Barcelona  Joan Martinez-Alier
Although European financing (in my field, ecological economics) has been essential for European researchers since 1990, and the level of understanding of the needs of a new field such as this one has been far greater at European than at national level (in many countries), nevertheless the bureaucracy is too complicated and meddlesome, focusing on minor details. Project officers are generally helpful but sometimes not competent.

19 May 17:45   Spain   IDEA Agency  VAZQUEZ SIMON
Over the years a great deal of new paperwork has been piled up into programmes DNA to properly fulfil a Frameworks project. The aim of each one paper: to further control projects expenses, outcome, results.
But most consultants and organizations have now a bigger muscle for paper producing than for projects doings. Papers can hold anything, doings are far harder to get.
Allocating personnel and material resources to monitor projects doings instead of administrative readers to paper approvals would be of paramount importance. I took place in projects that were suppose to develope IT Tools and I was suppose to test in SMEs, they published books and produced demos and a lot of software that never ever worked to be tested. I participated in projects to benchmark at both SMEs level and policy makers level, the ideas were original, the paperwork too, but left behind a bittersweet feeling as if nothing had been achieved and much more could have been gotten if technicians were allowed to collaborate freely for 2 hours a day in a sort of European Supervised Free Exchange Chat Digital Hub.

23 Mar 12:48   Spain   IDIBELL  Cristina Muñoz-Pinedo
We spend more time doing paperwork than science. It is the people with best/more secretaries, rather than the people with best ideas/abilities who get the European money.

8 Mar 09:31   Spain   IGME- Instituto Geológico y minero de España  Raúl Pérez-López
working together to make better world!!

6 May 22:51   Spain   Ikerbasque - University of the Basque Country  Ezequiel Di Paolo
Excessive regulation of scientific projects implies not so much distrust of researchers, but a method of control and intervention in the planning and execution of their activities. One would wish governments and public funding agencies would apply the same stringent measures in other areas of public spending (e.g., bailing out bankrupt banks).

17 Feb 18:09   Spain   IMM - CSIC  Jose Maria Ripalda Cobian
Please just let us do our job.

7 May 14:59   Spain   Inst. Biol. Mol y Cel de Plantas (IBMCP) (UPV-CSIC)  Vicente Conejero
Any change to decrease bureaucracy facilitating the processing and of proposals will be very wellcome.

22 Feb 15:10   Spain   Institut de Ciències del Mar, CSIC  Carlos Pedrós-Alió
The current system is very inefficient and requires a lot of wasted time on the part of European scientists. This is not the way to use human resources efficiently

4 May 11:33   Spain   Instituto de Fisica Teorica, Universidad Autonoma de Madrid  Morgan Le Delliou
unnecessary complexities of the Marie Curie Grant applications have impeded many applications of worthy colleagues, as well as mine

3 Mar 13:06   Spain   Instituto de Investigaciones Marinas (IIM), CSIC  Miquel Planas
When I was young, I wanted to a Researcher. Now, I still would like to be only a Researcher and not invaded by tons of bureaucracy.

18 Feb 17:34   Spain   Instituto de Medicina Genomica  Manuel Perez-Alonso
I strongly support this declaration

4 May 12:09   Spain   Instituto de Medicina Genómica  Manuel Perez-Alonso
I strongly agree with this initiative. The paper work related with EC projects is really disgusting.

17 Feb 14:21   Spain   Instituto de Microelectronica de Madrid  Pablo Aitor Postigo
The EU is dedicating more than a 30% of the money for I+D research projects to non I+D purposes including active consulting and exaggerated management costs. Situation can change if a better EU science policy is employed.

25 Jun 12:38   Spain   Instituto de Salud Carlos III  RAFAEL NAJERA
I fully agree with the Declaration. I think that bureaucrazy is complicating the already complicated process of performing research. The administration of funds should be made by the researchers with a clear and simple process of accountancy and freedom for the expenditure of funds, according to the needs of the project. These ideas will reduce the bureaucrazy and reduce costs. The results should be evaluated by publications and/or patents.

6 May 18:13   Spain   Instituto Geologico y Minero de España  Fernando Tornos
It is something absolutelly important for our work.

11 May 12:59   Spain   Instituto Geológico y Minero de España  Eduardo Barrón
The burocracy of my institution is very hard plus the burocracy that the Spanish Ministery of Science imposes the Spanish researchers obstruct us the development of our work.

2 Jul 11:08   Spain   Instituto Pluridisciplinar, Universidad Complutense  Manuel G. Velarde
Due to increased paperwork and other time consuming duties in the past decade I have refused to be coordinator of research proposals to be submitted to the EU. This added to the lack of trustiness of the researchers from EU Administration may justify how difficult is to compete with our fellow colleagues working in the USA.

17 Feb 13:08   Spain   Intituto de Microelectrónica de Madrid-CSIC  Luis Enrique Muñoz Camúñez
Please!

23 Apr 09:19   Spain   IPLA-CSIC  Victor Ladero
A reduction in the amount of bureaucracy that are required by EU, not only in the application but along the Project (Tons of reports, deliverables, etc) would allow much time to research and successful development of the Project within consortia.

25 Mar 15:55   Spain   Jesus  Jesus G. G. Boticario
As researchers we are doing our best in pursuing clearly stated research objectives. Please, let us work and
support our goals achievement once they have been approved instead of distracting and diverting us through
administrative requirements. Further, when monitoring and controlling research projects please do establish
generally accepted research evaluation criteria focused on results instead of just trusting a review process
where results are to be “reinterpreted” by a reduce panel of people who, obviously, are not able to digest in a
few hours, much less to assess, the value of a whole year of hard work.

11 Mar 17:07   Spain   Mediapro  Joan Bennassar
Actually the process is extremly expensive in ellapsed and dedicated time and resources

4 Mar 09:22   Spain   MicroArt S.L.  Juan Martínez-Miranda
I am totally agree that the founds for research must be strictly controlled, but it could be
beneficial if the process would be less bureucratic, specially during the negotiations stage
before sign the contract.

23 Mar 17:05   Spain   Ministry of Science and Innovation  Gloria Villar Acevedo
The level of bureocracy associated to the justification of the EC programmes is way too much to handle. It takes more resources than the project itself, which is a pitty, as we could be concentrating our efforts on the activities themselves.

22 Jun 09:11   Spain   Official Medical College Medtechnologu S.A.U  Simon Schwartz-Riera
The Official Medical College and the SME Meditcnology S.A.U. help and advice researchers for improving science,technology and the success for bio to practical resolts to the society. I am the coordinator. I have experience on european projects and I and we support all the concepts of the present Declaration

10 Mar 15:54   Spain   Polytechnic University of Valencia  Andres Alba Perez
Bureaucracy in the Framework research-funding programme has grown to joke levels. Time to get a project finally approved and financed, the amount of time and paperwork to comply with financial and auditing requirements like justifications of hours dedicated to every other project you may have... what starts like good news may end you not wanting more european projects.

18 Feb 16:41   Spain   Rafael Sentandreu  Rafael Sentandreu
We ask the European Council of Ministers and the Parliament to urgently simplify the financial and administrative provisions related to the Framework Programme and other European funding instruments considering their important leverage effect for the competitiveness of the European Research Area.

17 Feb 13:13   Spain   Spanish CSIC  Juan Fernando GALLARDO LANCHO
I wish to disminish the bureaucracy about R+D in ALL the European instituions, member countries included.

18 Feb 15:26   Spain   Spanish Research Council CSIC  Elena Casacuberta
I had a Marie Curie International Reintegration Grant and both me and the administrative officials of my
organization found the bureaucracy excessively complicated.

24 Mar 12:05   Spain   Techforce SLU  David Esteban
Theres a profound need to clarify target and scopes for Research, Development and Innovation. Mixing them up as
a single concept is not really helping to produce significantly challenging proposals

5 Mar 12:36   Spain   Telefonica I+D  Angel Ferreiro
The process for proposals evaluation should be technically improved, with more personel and time to analyze them and even counter propose alliances or new new formulations in a dynamic way. The final results seem too polically tailored. A blind first round could work.

28 May 09:57   Spain   Thechnical University of Madrid  Juan L. Perez
SIMPLIFY ADMINISTRATIVE WORK AND MORE RESEARCH TIME

7 May 08:47   Spain   Univ ersity of Barcelona  Mª Isabel Trillas-Gay
It is very important to simplify all burocracy in Europe in order to improve our competitivity

18 Feb 11:28   Spain   Universidad Autonoma de Madrid  Belen Gavela
If you dont stop the trend, the activities and career of a researcher will basically depend on how to
write Brussels style projects and how to deal with bureaucracy, rather than on the quality of her/his
research.

18 Feb 11:47   Spain   universidad autonoma de madrid  enrique alvarez
bureaucracy is taking a growing percentage of our research time.

21 Feb 21:22   Spain   Universidad Carlos III de Madrid  Jose Cuesta
Bureaucracy is the reason that European science is less competitive than American science.

18 Feb 12:45   Spain   Universidad Complutense de Madrid  Susana López-Ornat
The time taken by administrative tasks related to presenting and monitoring a European research proyect, has been the cause of giving them up, in spite of a first (scientifically successful) experience.

18 Feb 13:31   Spain   Universidad Complutense de Madrid  Jesus Pla
Sometimes EU bueaucracy is a real problem for the advancement of our research

4 Mar 09:42   Spain   Universidad Complutense de Madrid  Jacobo Santamaria
..

5 May 19:03   Spain   Universidad Complutense de Madrid  José Ramón Mas Mayoral
The researchers we have always had problems with bureaucracy, but now with online bureaucracy we really seem their slaves.

11 May 17:08   Spain   Universidad de Burgos  Alfonso de la Fuente Ruiz
Please do something about this issue.

5 May 11:04   Spain   Universidad de Huelva  Mario E. Gomez
Just joint the amount of time wasted in every application by all the participants and put a price on it, even evaluate the cost at minimal salary rate.

5 May 12:05   Spain   UNIVERSIDAD DE HUELVA  Mª Carmen Cabrera
I strongly support this declaration.

5 May 17:03   Spain   Universidad de Huelva  Cristina Fuentes-Audén
Burocracy is a very big handicap to develop researching, because is a waste of time and human resources.

8 May 17:41   Spain   Universidad de La Laguna  Justine Tally
The heavily bureaucratic nature of requesting funding discourages transnational cooperation and research.

20 May 03:14   Spain   Universidad de Salamanca  Agustin Ferraro
In all my contacts and applications for funding for scientific research at EU institutions, I have been overwhelmed by the excessive formalities and paperwork. This has actually discouraged me from applying or simply keeping track of funding opportunities at EU level. Its simply too complicated.

19 Feb 14:59   Spain   Universidad de Sevilla  F. Javier Garcia
Bureaucracy is burdening my research time (estoy hasta la coronilla de la burocracia)

6 May 18:13   Spain   Universidad Politécnica de Marid  Fernando García-Arenal
Bureaucrazy often rinhibits application for EU research funds, as the amount of funds granted usually does not comensate for the compelxity of the justification.

24 Feb 02:36   Spain   Universidad Politecnica de Valencia  Vicente Traver
We just want to research and not waste more time everytime with financial regulations. We are not against rules, but please simplify it or the others will invent whereas the Europeans are fulfilling paper.

18 Feb 17:52   Spain   Universidade de Santiago de Compostela  Salva Bará
...

23 Feb 09:27   Spain   Universitary Hospital Vall dHebron  Simon Schwartz
I have experience on European projects as coordinator and also as partner and I consider the burocracie and the complexity of the application are a real problem and handicap. I have needed always help of one administrative advisor on preparing the non scientific part of the project .

9 Mar 16:50   Spain   Universitat Autònoma de Bacrelona  Carles Arús
I fully support the need for streamlining and reducing bureocracy associated to EU grant request and project audit.

16 Feb 11:22   Spain   Universitat Barcelona  Pedro Martinez
More time for science and less for paperwork!

10 Mar 11:37   Spain   Universitat de Barcelona  Montserrat Gállego Culleré
La union europea tiene entre sus lenguas oficiales el castellano. La peticion de financiación, así como los informes tendrían que poder ser elaborados en este idioma. Los formularios son complejos y la universidad tiene unos overheads demasiado grandes como para que actualmente sea atractvo la peticion de proyectos financiables por la UE. Trabajamos para los demas. Se contempla la financiacion de equipos grandes, que conllevan problemas de coordinacion y comunicación, y no se tiene en cuenta a los equipos pequeños, pero con una trayectoria científica buena en relación al número de componentes

18 Feb 21:01   Spain   Universitat de les Illes Balears  Francisco Barcelo
I agree that managing research funding should be made simpler

24 Mar 13:21   Spain   Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya  Ramon Josa
Absolutely agree with the call for simplification of the administrative burden for research.

4 Mar 06:30   Spain   Universitat Pompeu Fabra  Alejandro Frangi
Excellent and timely initiative. We should be moving to a model that makes excellence and good
ideas to prevail versus ability to navigate through the ocean of bureacracy.

8 Apr 11:49   Spain   Universitat Ramon Llull – La Salle  Albert Fornells
I agree and support the declaration. Let’s make things easier…

8 Apr 12:28   Spain   Universitat Ramon Llull – La Salle  Oscar Garcia-Panella
Paperwork is necessary and unavoidable. That is clear. But we all would like to refine the
processes a little bit so that we can devote as many time as possible to the realization of the
project!.

4 May 12:48   Spain   University of Alcala  Angel Criado
The detail asked at present in EC program reporting is becoming absurd. I wonder why adminstrative personnel in the EC need to know the exact amount (in enzyme units, for example) that was purchased by a scientist when developing the project?

2 Mar 09:19   Spain   University of Barcelona  Alipio Sánchez Vidal
As in any other field, European burocracy is smothering science and research, preventing any appearance of true initiative and creativity, wasting our time and suffocating democracy with its unending nets

23 Feb 10:34   Spain   University of Barcelona and Hospital Clínic  Rafael Oliva
There are different lines for potential improvement:
1. Increasing the success rate of applications. It takes a lot of effort to prepare and submit proposals. Possibly the present low success rate together with the amount of work involved discourages many groups from submitting excellent proposals.
2. Simplifying as much as possible the administrative aspects for submitting proposals and, in case of successful applications, simplifying the administrative aspects and their follow-up.

22 Feb 21:39   Spain   University of Cordoba  Rosario Ortega
I has a large experience on European Project and I consider the burocracie and the complexity of the application are a real problem and handicap to organice the reseach activities and cooperation

15 Feb 17:06   Spain   University of Girona  Miguel Fernandez
Advantage should be taken of the new information and communication technologies in order to simplify bureaucracy and and financial management. The simpler the management is the better the research will be.

2 Mar 13:20   Spain   University of Granada  Fermin Sanchez de Medina
Focus on science, please!

11 Mar 12:48   Spain   University of Granada  Rafael Jiménez
I completely agree with this declaration

11 Mar 18:03   Spain   University of Granada  Mateo Pedro Luis
So far I´ve been PI of EU NETWORKS and research projects since 1988 (BAP, BRIDGE,...) uninterruptedly up to the presente (VII Programme, Health). The EU bureaucracy burden and administrative requirements have also been steadily increasing since then; something particularly annoying, tiresome and unfair for countries/institutions without good financial/administration suppport. It is all time, energy and humor consuming with the obvious and undesirable consequences.

5 May 17:58   Spain   University of Huelva  Alfonso Vargas-Sánchez
Instead of researchers, we are becoming burocracts and losing our direction. There is an amazing waste of time and talent because the excesive burden of paperwork, and this means lack of productivity and lack of European competitiveness.

11 May 10:09   Spain   University of Huelva  José Carrillo
Sometimes time is so scarce that we do not ask for international projects because of the big amount of documents we have to fill in.

19 Feb 11:48   Spain   University of Jaén  Rafael Díaz de la Guardia
If the bike is moving too slowly, it may fall.

23 Mar 15:12   Spain   University of La Coruna  Alexander Mikhailov
The actual system is plain burocrasy, let us find new ways to save our research: less a stupid exelence - more possibilities to do a good work.

8 May 19:06   Spain   University of La Laguna  Elena Sámchez
Bureaucracy is contradictory to progress and hides the malfunction of states.

18 Feb 13:38   Spain   University of Lleida  Albert Sorribas
Our experience with EU funding is negative. After being selected for the final round of SYSMO, our project was rejected by a formatting question on page margins. Although we do agree on the need of rules, we were largely disappointed on the way they are applied. I cannot imagine a scientist taking the kind of decision the officers of this call applied on our project.

18 Feb 13:55   Spain   University of Lleida  Enrique Herrero
Excess of bureaucracy is a burden for the advance of EU-funded research

18 Feb 14:07   Spain   University of Lleida  Marti Aldea
Administration of research in Europe is designed as if scientific research were a simple and predictable trading activity...

11 Jun 10:50   Spain   University of Malaga  Cristina Urdiales
One spends most of the time in a project filling paperwork rather than doing real research.

19 Feb 11:01   Spain   University of Seville  Alejandro Linares-Barranco
And it should increase the number of STREP projects, as this benefits not very large
groups.

18 Feb 12:04   Spain   University of the Balearic Islands  Jaume Rosselló-Mir
Its high time that things change!

18 Feb 13:18   Spain   University of Valencia  Jose Perez-Ortin
Funding in Science should be based only in quality principles and Science should prevail on bureaucracy.

18 Feb 17:37   Spain   University of Valencia  Juan Ferré-Manzanero
I have participated in 3 EU funded projects and have been responsible for hosting 3 Marie Curie fellows. Ive always found the burocracy involved overwhelming. Im glad that the Univesity administrative department finally learned how to deal with it.

4 May 15:33   Spain   University of Valencia  Joaquin Baixeras
Paperwork and the need for huge teams is just discouraging scientists from applying for EU funds. I am sure the money is there but it is so difficult to get there. With this system we cannot really compete at international level.

25 Feb 12:06   Spain   University of Vigo  Jesus Simal-Gandara
The idea and previous research experience of the main researcher and her/his team should suffice !!!

25 Mar 21:52   Spain   University of Vigo - Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution  Kais Jacob Mohamed Falcón
Ever increasing administrative paperwork
Ever increasing peer review requirements
Less time for research

18 Feb 15:10   Spain   UPF  Elodie Gazave
Less bureaucracy also means more time for scientific interactions with students and other group members.

24 Feb 11:22   Spain   UPF  Gosta Esping-Andersen
I have participated in a number of EU financed projects over the years, but I doubt I will repeat the experience again. The bureaucratic burden of reporting ad nauseum unnecesarily absorbs way too much time. It all seems to be mounted in the spririt of Napoleonic law which presupposes that you are guilty of something until you manage to persuade otherwise.

10 Mar 15:50   Spain   Zaragoza university  Pablo Laguna
Administration should be considerable reduced, and e-tools should be established word wide NOT to repeat several times same procedures



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