JRC AT PRESENT 

Many former members of the Joint Research Centre staff continue to follow with great interest the development of their past workplace. They are facilitated in this by the publications, newsletters, reports, etc. coming from the Centre and by the informative JRC Web Site www.jrc.cec.eu.int or by participation in public JRC events.

 

Thus it is possible to present a brief view of the JRC as seen from the outside.
   
The JRC mission

 

The World, Europe and the European Community (now called the European Union) have undergone radical changes since the JRC was set up more than 40 years ago. Priorities for common European research domains have changed and have been vastly amplified since the early days of the European Community. JRC therefore has often been under debate in the Member States and in the EC Institutions - Council, European Parliament, Commission, etc..

 

It however became evident that Europe needed in many areas of common interest a powerful tool capable to provide an independent view for the decision makers. Consequently, the tasks of JRC were continuously adapted to the needs of the Union and more in particular to the Commission responsibilities.


The mission which was agreed by the Council and the European Parliament in 1999  forms a solid basis for the  present and future activities of the JRC. It states:

The Joint Research Centre is a Directorate General of the European Commission whose mission is to provide customer-driven scientific and technical support for the conception, development, implementation and monitoring of Community policies. As a service of the European Commission, the JRC functions as a reference centre of science and technology for the Community. Close to the policy-making process, it serves the common interest of the Member States, while being independent of commercial or national interests.
 
The acceptance of this mission statement by political bodies shows that increasingly in our understanding of democracy, decision making processes cannot only be based on ”conventional” arguments but often need to be supported by rational understanding of processes and events. The contribution provided by a multidisciplinary and multicultural highly qualified body such as JRC is particularly valuable in this context:

The main JRC tasks

We have observed how the JRC organisation developed in a dynamic way to match the new requirements of the JRC changing from a centralised project oriented structure to seven separate Institutes which are:

 

  • The Institute for Reference Materials and Methods, Geel, Belgium
  • The Institute for Transuranium Elements, Karlsruhe, Germany,
  • The Institute for Energy, Petten, The Netherlands
  • The Institute for the Protection and the Security of the Citizen, Ispra, Italy
  • The Instirtute for Environment and Sustainability, Ispra, Italy
  • The Institute for Health and Consumer Protection, Ispra, Italy
  • The Institute for Prospective Technological Studies, Sevilla, Spain.

 

In performing its work, the JRC is complementing its Institutes’ competencies and facilities through a series of Integrated Scientific Areas (ISAs), with the objective to provide the best possible scientific and technological support to European policies. Simultaneously, the JRC is also contributing to the European Research Area through a series of measures. These comprise developing and operating common systems of scientific reference, increased international networking activities across Europe and outside, targeted multinational and multidisciplinary training & mobility schemes, promoting access to and use of JRC's specialised facilities, and helping Candidate Countries in the last steps of  their integration in the Union.
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JRC now is under way with its multi-annual work programme (2003 - 2006) under the 6th EU Framework Programme for research and technological development.

The work is structered according to the following scientific topics:

 

Scientific Topics

1. Food, Chemical Products and Health

Safety and quality of food and feed

Food chain: from agriculture to consumer protection

GMOs in food, feed, seeds and the environment

Assessment of Chemicals and Exposure

Alternative methods to animal testing

Technologies for Biomedical Applications

Health and Environment: addressing exposure via human envirogenomics

 

2. Environment and Sustainability

Air quality and environmental radioactivity

Water quality and aquatic ecosystems

Soils and waste management

Land resources

Integration of sustainability into other policy areas

Climate change: the Kyoto protocol and beyond

Monitoring and assessing ecosystem sustainability

The Sustainable Energy Technologies Reference & Information System

Renewable energies and advanced energy conversion technologies

 

3. Nuclear Safety and Security

Management of spent fuel and of radioactive waste

Nuclear Security (safeguards and non proliferation)

Reactor and Nuclear fuel Safety

Radiation Monitoring

Basic Actinide Research

 

4. Horizontal Activities

4.1 Technology Foresight

Technology Foresight in other JRC priorities

Cross-cutting techno-economic foresight

Statistical methods for analysis of economic indicators

 

4.2 Reference Materials and Measurements

Reference materials and methods in other JRC priorities

BCR and industrial certified reference materials

Metrology in Chemistry and Radionuclide Metrology

Metrology in Physics: Neutron Data Measurements

 

4.3 Public Security and Antifraud

Antifraud and monitoring compliance with EU regulations in selected policies

Support to cybersecurity

Technological and natural risks

Contribution to Commission objectives in humanitarian aid and assistance

 

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Wishes for the Future

 

From the outside we  note that the JRC will  face most important challenges for the coming years. We trust that our former colleagues and newcomers in the JRC institutes and the JRC central offices in Brussels will find a rewording and interesting task in executing the program which has been decided for the Centre.

 

Above all we emphasize the high scientific qualities of the JRC and its staff. Throughout the long history of the JRC this always has constituted the solid and uncontested backbone of the work and it will be the most important prerequisite for all the tasks assigned to the JRC in the coming years.

We note how the present JRC management underline this and in multiple  ways encourage scientific excellence throughout the JRC staff.
We trust that the important and often urgent day-to-day work also in the future will allow room and resources for maintaining and developing the skills of the staff at all levels, keep up the fine scientific instrumentation  and assure an organisatorial and managerial  structure fully adapted to the execution of scientific work with appropiate functions to serve the researchers in their work.

 

The numerous former members of the JRC staff will continue to take a strong interest in the JRC and its endeavours, and so they are convinced will the European public!