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Out of control

Governments should trust researchers to maintain integrity

Technology transfer was the science buzzword of the 2000s. The activity became an official EU research funding stream under Framework 7, the predecessor to the Horizon 2020 R&D programme, and threaded its way through other big programmes launched at the time. These included Galileo, the satellite navigation programme, and Iter, the fusion research experiment in France. Both sought to unite European researchers with colleagues from far-flung destinations in the quest to access and share the latest findings. 

More than a decade later, much of the initial excitement around such transfer of knowledge has been replaced with worry. Governments across the EU are fretting about losing precious knowledge to countries that might surpass them in innovation—or use that knowledge against them. 

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