2011 Anniversary Yearbook - EUFEPS today and history

subjects during their under graduate
training in order that motivation and
suitability for a research career (Ph.D.
training) can be evaluated at the time
of graduation. Preferably such training
should be undertaken in a high quality
and stimulating re search environment and
include a training period abroad, either
at another university or in an industrial
research institute. Internationalization,
mobility, flexibility, interdisciplinarity in
basic research competence are key words
in this respect. Subsequent graduate studies
and research should be undertaken by the
best qualified students and should lead to
independent and creative researchers at the
time of obtaining this Doctor’s degree. In
the Newsletter of the Academia Europaea
(November 1993) it is outlined by the
Swedish Minister for Education and Science
that this country will invest heavily during
the coming years in education and research
in an international context and that the
number of doctoral exams in Sweden will
have to be doubled by the year 2000. This
is surely also in the interest of the (Swedish)
pharmaceutical industry and should serve
as an excellent example for other European
countries to follow.
An important question is to what
extent our universities, and in particular its
faculties of pharmacy and pharmaceutical
sciences in Europe, are willing and
capable of accommodating the future
needs of innovation in drug research
and development. There is, in my view,
no doubt that the overall willingness is
there, but that there are in many places
also major obstacles to engage in high
quality re search and therefore also in
the research training of excellent young
pharmaceutical scientists. These obstacles
include the fact that in most faculties or
institutes the orientation centres primarily
on the training of pharmacists rather than
pharmaceutical scientists. In only a few
countries are undergraduate programmes
offered which may also effectively lead
to a research career as described above.
Furthermore, in many instances pharmacy
programmes are heavily taught rather
than research oriented; this is partially
caused by large numbers of students
and/or by lack of resources for research
with no competitive basis for successful
application for external grants. Also
the organizational structure in terms of
monodisciplinarity is an inhibiting factor
in developing cross-disciplinary re search
programmes, as is the lack of participation
in international research networks.
In order to improve this current
unsatisfactory situation it is necessary
to remind our selves of some of the
conditions which are required to perform
high quality research. A major issue
in this respect is the development and
implementation of an effective research
strategy which should exhibit most of the
following characteristics:
• the establishment and creation of a
stimulating and creative environment
through building research around
excellent and motivated scientists;
• the abandonment of hierarchical
levels, i.e. much autonomy for
individual scientists;
• appreciation of individual scientist’s
initiatives (self expression), within the
con text of the overall research mission
of an institute or a faculty;
• encouragement of working in
multidisciplinary teams;
• emphasis on research output through
publications in first class peer reviewed
international journals and through
patent applications;
• effective decision making on research
orientation, budget allocation and
incentives.
Once this research strategy is agreed
upon, an effective organizational structure
will be required for its implementation. In
this respect, an important development
in Europe is the creation of so-called
“research schools”. These are defined as
university based re search institutes of
international standing which provide the
structural environment for high quality
research training. The reasons for the
establishment of such “schools” are:
• improved quality of research training
in a multidisciplinary environment
(combined undergraduate and graduate
research programmes with great
emphasis on highly qualified Ph.D.’ s;
• enhanced efficiency of the use of
research resources;
• matching human resources for research
to science policy priorities, i.e. taking
serious account of the research needs in
the public sector (e.g. the pharma-
ceutical industry);
• enhancement of international
collaboration and exchange of staff and
students.
Such research schools may have a “local”
character, i.e. be established within a single
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university that contains all necessary
disciplines. More often, however, it will
have a “network” character with several
departments of different universities and
complementary expertise collaborating.
In my own country, the government is
strongly stimulating the establishment of
re search schools. The Royal Netherlands
Academy of Arts and Sciences has
been given the responsibility to review
applications for such· a recognition. High
quality research and graduate teaching,
as well as an organizational structure as
outlined above, belong to the most important
recognition criteria with preferably
more than one university participating
in a school. Two such schools have been
established for the pharmaceutical sciences:
in 1992, the Leiden-Amsterdam Center for
Drug Research (LACDR), comprising the
Center for Bio-Pharmaceutical Sciences at
Leiden University and the Department of
Pharmacochemistry of the Yrije Universiteit
in Amsterdam and in 1994 the Groningen-
Utrecht Institute for Drug Exploration
(GUI DE), that consists of the faculties of
pharmacy of the University of Groningen
and that of Utrecht. LACDR is further
Europeanized in ULLA, a consortium
for postgraduate research training in the
pharmaceutical sciences together with
the Faculties of Pharmacy in Uppsala and
London. There is currently a committee of
EU Member States investigating the need
for similar developments in other European
countries. For the pharmaceutical sciences
and the training of pharmaceutical
scientists, this should represent an important
development towards meeting the needs of
the pharmaceutical industry in Europe in
the future.
One could think of different
organizational models to accommodate
this, but most of the basic elements
indicated in this Editorial should be
implemented in order to make such an
organization successful.
Most likely, new organizational
structures are needed for the
pharmaceutical sciences in Europe in
order to improve the quality of research
training. Such structures could still
be closely associated with Faculties of
Pharmacy, but their mission should be
clearly differentiated from the training of
pharmacists and focus on pharmaceutical
sciences. In my view, this is a prerequisite
guaranteeing that the three issues as
discussed are fully met and appreciated
through university industry partnerships.