Research spending creates jobs, Geoghegan-Quinn tells Irish senate

Research and innovation is Europe’s ticket to growth and jobs in the future, Europe’s commissioner for research, innovation and science Máire Geoghegan-Quinn has told the upper house of the Irish parliament.

“We need to maintain R&D investments in Europe, but we also need to get better value for money,” she said in an address to the Seanad (senate) on 8 May. Research spending has helped strengthen those economies where such investments were made, she added. At a time when five million jobs were lost across the EU between 2008 and 2010, what she called “knowledge employment” in member states rose by 800,000.

“Think of [the European Research Area] as a European single market for research, knowledge and ideas,” Geoghegan-Quinn told the Seanad. The measures taken under the ERA help researchers, research centres and businesses to cooperate across borders and to promote excellence across the community, she added.