Spain makes up for lost time

In our focus on Spanish research, Rebecca Warden reports on a new ministry, new money and the efforts to form links with industry.

Spanish science could be described as a late developer now making up for lost time. Its rise from humble beginnings in the early 1980s to a respectable place in the international research ratings today is a modern-day success story.

Much remains to be done, however. Insufficient resources, job instability and limited career prospects for young researchers, lack of technicians and other support staff and small, fragmented research teams are some of the problems scientists often cite.

After a period of funding stagnation during the early 1990s, the newly elected government of the right is determined to expand the system and tackle the historical lack of take-up of research by Spanish industry.

One of its first acts has been to give scientists a new ministry of Science and Technology, headed by Catalan economist and businesswoman Anna Birules. Academics have welcomed the move.

"Now we will have someone who will fight for the science budget," says Miguel Angel Quintanilla, professor of logic and science philosophy at Salamanca University, although the fact that new technologies such as telecommunications will also come under the same ministry is not to his liking.

Cesar Nombela, president of Spain's largest research organisation, CSIC, defends the move as "it is not a matter of confusing or mixing up, rather achieving maximum coordination."

One example of this more unified approach is that public research centres previously scattered between nine ministries will now come under the one science and technology roof.

Birules has made no policy pronouncements as yet, but she can be expected to implement the national science plan 2000-03, which will make more money available for research by doubling research and development spending from its current 0.9 per cent of gross domestic product to reach the European average of 2 per cent by 2003.

Two thousand new jobs will be created for researchers in the public sector, boosting the percentage of researchers from 3.3 per cent of the working population in 1998 to 4 per cent by 2003.

A second significant theme is the need to boost the absorption of the results of research by strengthening the links between Spanish industry and universities and research centres. The focus will be on key "scientific-technological" areas including biomedicine, biotechnology, materials, industrial design and production.

Most academics agree that Spanish research has come a long way over the past 20 years. In 1980 Spain produced just over 1 per cent of world science. Today it contributes 2.51 per cent.

But while public-sector research has come into its own, links to industry remain weak, and much of Spanish industry still prefers to import technology rather than invest in developing its own. Spain's private sector spent 0.41 per cent of GDP on R&D in 1995 compared with Britain's 1.34 per cent.

As for the future, Marius Rubiralta, vice-rector of research at Barcelona University, believes that facilitating spin-off companies and providing flexible spaces for university-business cooperation, such as the science park his university will soon inaugurate, is one way forward.

He believes universities' research profiles will become increasingly specialised, leading to the formation of centres of excellence in a few fields driven by large, multidisciplinary research teams. Pooling resources and the sharing of expensive installations by universities will become the norm, he says.

Nombela predicts that Spain's dual system of research centres and universities will become more closely integrated, with the CSIC's current total of 33 joint institutions with universities increasing.

He also believes that Spain will increase its participation in international projects and expects the CSIC to consolidate its strong reputation in fields such as biomedicine, physics and natural sciences.