The Department of Chemical Sciences of the CNRS and its alter ego European chemists have a strong partnership for several years under the CERC3 (Chairmen Of European Research Council’s Chemistry Committees). The gathering of leaders of academic chemistry European born in 1990 under the leadership of the department, is a tool for trans-European cooperation, inspiring a bilateral Franco-German “bottom-up” to success.
Young European and US researchers starting out their scientific careers were given the opportunity to present their research work and initiate collaborations with their peers at a workshop organised by Professor Paul Murphy and Dr Xiangming Zhu of the UCD School of Chemistry and Chemical Biology and Centre for Synthesis and Chemical Biology (CSCB).
The CERC3 aims to promote research through two types of essential activities:
• workshops (workshops) organized since 1991 twice a year alternately by partner agencies. About fifty young European researchers involved in these exchanges on topics proposed by chemists targeted members of CERC3;
• transnational programs initiated three years since 1999. The themes of these programs leading to calls for proposals are defined by common agreement and derive from the organization of conferences bringing together 30 senior and 40 top scientists appointed by each agency or academy.
Between late 2001 and early 2002, the Department of Chemical Sciences of the CNRS and the DFG decided within the CERC3, to invest in a mutual partnership through a very specific bilateral collaboration designed to be open to all fields of chemistry.
A common procedure for the call was made. The expertise needed to identify priority visibly high value added of the Franco-German collaboration in a given project. Projects implementing three to four laboratories French and German were born in autumn 2002 after selection expertise and joint projects by a scientific committee Franco-German joint covering all disciplines of chemistry. That appeal has attracted great interest from the scientific community represented by more than 300 French and German teams have mobilized a number of scientific experts.
This experience has served as an example of good practice for CERC3 partners who decided to get involved in two new transnational calls for proposals launched in late 2002 for selected projects during 2003. These calls are focused on two themes proposed by members of CERC3 at the end of senior conferences. One focuses on chemistry as support of sustainable development, the other on the chemistry of nucleic acids.
The CERC3 is now ripe to pass a new course towards the European Research Area as part of FP6. This new leadership will affirm and consolidate these transnational collaborations fruitful and lasting benefits to the European scientific community of chemists.
The partners CERC3
Germany: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG), University of Göttingen
Austria: Fonds zur Förderung der wissenschaftlichen Forschung (FWF)
Belgium: National Fund for Scientific Research (FNRS), Limburg University, FWO
Denmark: Copenhagen University, Statens Naturvidenskabelige Forsknngsrad (SNF)
Spain: Universidad Autonoma de Madrid
Finland: University of Helsinki, Academy of Finland – Research Council for Natural Sciences and Engineering
France: CNRS / Department of Chemical Sciences
Greece: National Center for Scientific Research (NCSR “Demokritos’)
Ireland: University College Dublin
Italy: Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (CNR)
Netherlands: Nederlandse Org. voor Wetenschappelij Onderzoe (NWO)
Portugal: Fundacao para a Ciência a Tecnologia (FCT), Universidade de Lisboa
Sweden: Chalmers University of Technology, Swedish Research Council for Natural Sciences and Engineering
Switzerland: Swiss National Fund (SNF), University of Neuchatel
United Kingdom Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), University of Bristol