The Telegraph, April 9th, Angus Dalgleish
The resignation of Mauro Ferrari as the European Research Council (ERC) chief after only a few months in place highlights deep seated problems with the whole EU project.
He was appointed because he was different being a successful head of a university large scale scientific programme as well as having commercial experience. He was described as flamboyant, dynamic and a great communicator who could instigate change and get things done.
The rapidly expanding Covid-19 crisis gave Ferrari the opportunity to unite and harness a combined European front and he proposed a top-down programme to harness the best in Europe to fight all scientific aspects of this.
However, he was rebuffed in doing the job he was hired for as this is not the way the EU works. It is bottom-up research and he was told there were enough scientists working on Covid programmes already, in a perfect example of scientists being overruled by the improvised intuition of political leaders.
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