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Article published in Liverpool Daily Post and Echo, 23 February 2006.
Liverpool University vice-chancellor, Drummond Bone yesterday attacked plans for a multi-million pound European institute of technology, warning it could result in ‘a costly white elephant’.
The European Commission said the new institute would aim to attract the best students and researchers from around the world to work with businesses on innovative research.
But the British vice-chancellors’ umbrella group, Universities UK, of which Professor Bone is president, said the plans were poorly thought-out and inappropriate.
Professor Bone said: ‘We welcome the European Commission’s continued commitment to improving growth through research and development but a European institute of technology is not the right vehicle for this objective.
‘If these plans go ahead, they will threaten the EU’s goals of boosting research and development efforts, by distracting resources and efforts away from existing proposals.’
Professor Bone said attempting to copy the successful Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the US was naïve. ‘The current proposals do not take into account the realities of cross-border research and interaction with business.
‘Looking across the Atlantic to MIT and trying to engineer it in Europe, which in effect is what the Commission has done, is simplistic in the extreme.
‘Unless we see changes to these plans, European research could be lumbered with a costly white elephant.’
European Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso said: ‘It will teach graduates and doctoral candidates to carry out research and be active in innovation.’
