Munich

Twenty people are set to become the most influential scientists in European basic research policy — at least for a while. They will form the governing council of the planned European Research Council (ERC), and they are due to be named next month.

The ERC will be the first pan-European research funding agency. Although part of the European Commission's next Framework programme for research (FP7), which begins late next year, it will be run by the academic community largely independently of the commission.

The first ERC governing council will be particularly powerful, as its remit will be to shape the broad programmes under which the European research community will apply for project funding. The commission has proposed that the ERC budget should average a hefty €1.5 billion (US$1.9 billion) per year. But even if the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers agree to this generous funding, massive oversubscription is feared. So the council may try to limit demand by, for example, earmarking funds for certain sectors, such as young scientists. It will also set up evaluation and peer-review systems.

Members of the council are being selected by a panel of five academics chaired by Chris Patten, chancellor of Oxford and Newcastle universities. The panel was appointed by the European Commission in January and has since invited nominations from various European bodies involved in research, including national academies, research funding agencies, industry and universities. Despite requesting restraint, the panel has received well over 200 suggestions.

The final list will be designed to provide maximum credibility and authority, says the panel, and will be broadly representative of disciplines and types of research.

Gender and geography will also be taken into account, but panel members defend their commitment to idealism. “The ERC is about frontier research and excellence,” says panel member and 1991 Nobel laureate Erwin Neher of the Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry in Göttingen. “The council needs to be credible in Europe, so balance is necessary — but there will be no question of geographical distribution of funds, or juste retour.”