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Portugal’s Ministry of Science andTechnology (MST) has launched anationwide consultation on how the

country’s science and technology shoulddevelop over the next seven years.

The consultation is based on a ‘whitepaper’, made up of a series of working docu-ments. The government is seeking com-ments and proposals from public and privateresearch centres, and from groups such aspublic authorities and private industry.

The ministry has set up a web-basedForum on Scientific Policy to conduct con-sultation. The website includes a letter toPortuguese scientists from the research min-ister, former physicist José Mariano Gago,explaining the country’s short- and medi-um-term research objectives.

Gago hopes to stimulate debates that willproduce information on the developmentand resources of different disciplines. TheObservatory of Science and Technology(OST), a body based at the MST, will coordi-nate the collection of data on the nation’s sci-ence and technology.

Cooperating with EuropeBased on the results, the MST will completean Integrated Programme of Science andTechnology, review the implementation ofthe 1988 Law of Scientific and Technologi-cal Development, and prepare the nextEuropean Commission programme of sup-port for science and technology.

Gago says that the white paper’s mainconclusions already form the basis of the newScientific and Technological DevelopmentProgramme (2000–2006), which has beenapproved by the government and will be pre-sented to the commission shortly.

It includes two interrelated operationalprogrammes: the first, called Science Tech-nology Innovation, has a budget of 192 bil-lion escudos (US$1 billion); half of this willcome from the Portuguese government andhalf from the European Union. The second,Information Society, has a budget of around140 billion escudos and will be funded fromthe same sources.

The provisional versions of these pro-grammes were made public at the end of July.Gago says that they will be formally submit-ted to Brussels within a few weeks.

The white paper includes a report, puttogether by the OST, which describes Portu-gal’s science policy over the past few yearsand its future objectives in research and tech-nology, including a special section devotedto information technology.

The report also analyses the internationalactivites of Portuguese scientists. In 1996, 49per cent of the publications with Portuguesecoauthors appearing in international scien-tific journals were international collabora-tions, up from 28 per cent in 1980–81.

The white paper includes ‘research pro-files’ covering physics, mathematics, chem-istry, health, engineering and environmen-tal science, produced by Portuguese special-ists nominated by the ministry. Theseexperts are the same as those who coordi-nated 20 international evaluation panelsthat assessed the performance of publiclyfunded research units three years ago (seeNature 387, 115; 1997).

The earlier evaluation consisted of ananalysis of the resources and achievements ofindividual research units, visits to the unitsand a final report with recommendations foreach field.

The reports assessed, with the aid of theOST, the scientific potential of each field andgave information on research activities,human, technological and financialresources and the strengths and weaknessesof research units.

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Most of the experts involved agree thatthe panels were useful, rigorous and fair,although some suggested there should havebeen more experts from outside the Euro-pean Union, especially from the UnitedStates.

But Gago says that some scientists toldthe ministry that the proportion of USexperts was too high, and that they should bereplaced by Europeans. The evaluation willbe repeated every three years — the nextis being carried out over this month andOctober.

Careers and communicationCarolino Monteiro, a human geneticist atthe Universidade Nova de Lisboa, says thatthe white paper is “a very important incen-tive for the Portuguese scientific communi-ty, as people can start to talk and give theiropinion”.

Edgar da Cruz e Silva, director of the Cen-tre for Cell Biology at the Universidade deAveiro, thinks the white paper is “a veryinteresting exercise that can help identify theweak points of the system and sort problemsout, not only in a given research unit but alsoexternally”.

The move reflects the MST’s efforts, ledby Gago since 1995, to reform Portugal’s sci-entific system. Already there has been a tenper cent annual average growth in the num-ber of PhDs, a 14–16 per cent annual growthin the public research and development bud-get since 1995, and a trebling in the numberof Portuguese publications cited in the Sci-ence Citation Index over the past decade.

Despite this progress, some of the contri-butions to the white paper warn of a lack ofcoordination of research in Portuguese uni-versities. Cruz e Silva says that in 1995 hisuniversity set up an ‘institute of research’made up of all the research units.

“So far, the experience shows that such aninstitute has been very useful in managingand coordinating science and technologyactivities in the Universidade de Aveiro,”he says.

Monteiro is worried that many Por-tuguese scientists cannot find research postsafter their postgraduate or postdoctoraltraining. The white paper’s reports — supp-plemented by the coordinators of the evalua-tion — reflect these concerns.

The report concludes: “Appropriaterecruitment policies appear to be urgentlyneeded to achieve not only a sustained expan-sion of the system, but also progressivelyyounger research personnel.” Xavier Bosch

Research in Portugal has grown apace over the past decade, and thegovernment is reviewing its achievements, problems and prospects.

Portugal’s science plots its future

The white paper‘can help show

the weak pointsin the system’

On the up: the Universidade Nova de Lisboa.Gago (inset) is consulting on science policy.