Across the European Union and the wider Europe, governments are engaged in cutting public expenditure and we are entering an unprecedented period of austerity. Thus, public support for research is now at risk in a manner not seen before and just at the time when Europe faces new challenges from the rising new economies, especially in Asia, and when threats to our quality of life from climate change, demographic change and energy, food and resource availability and sustainability are becoming evermore threatening and urgent. This undermines the EU Lisbon process, to create a leading knowledge-based economy which must remain as the aim of governments and societies across Europe. Read more [...]