Mr. Chairman,
Distinguished Guests,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
I feel very honoured to have been given the opportunity to welcome you to Luxembourg on the occasion of this conference.
First of all, I would like to thank the organising institutions, in particular the Laboratoire RCMS, for having taken the initiative once again to convene this important conference which brings together an international audience with eminent researchers to discuss signalling pathways and therapeutic tools in the field of Apoptosis.
It is the fourth time that this conference has been so successfully organised here in Luxembourg and I am proud that the number of distinguished participants from so many different countries has been increasing steadily since the first event.
In 2000 we welcomed around 500 participants; today more than 1100 representatives from both academia and the pharmaceutical industry will gather here at Kirchberg. I was informed that it is the biggest biomedical research conference in the world on this particular topic for 2003. Let me congratulate the organisers warmly for this success!
My special thanks, however, go to you, the distinguished participants, who have taken up the invitation to this meeting in such great number. You will have the chance to discuss a whole range of different aspects of Cell Death, a research topic which has tremendous potential for all of us in all aspects of our lives. "Apoptosis in Health and Disease" the title of one of the thematic sessions - underlines this extremely well.
I am confident that the conclusions of this conference will contribute to further encouraging the research in this field of biomedical research. Apoptosis research has tremendous potential as the basis not only for future research but also for commercial applications.
Distinguished Guests, Ladies and Gentlemen,
It goes without saying that research results offer potential economic benefits, but the gap between the research and the commercial sector often seems to be very large and a common denominator sometimes difficult to find. This problem has been recognised at highest political level.
In 2002 at the Barcelona European Council, the Heads of State and Government in Europe agreed that research and technological development investment in the European Union must be increased with the aim of approaching 3% of GDP by 2010, a goal to be achieved to a great extent through private sector funding.
This goal is very ambitious. In Luxembourg, R&D investment (private and public combined) is currently at 1.8% of GDP - not bad, bearing in mind in this context that public research in Luxembourg is only 15 years old.
We’ve made good progress, but as the different players in Luxembourg know, we still have some work to do.
Hence, let me give you a short overview of the current and future developments in research and in particular in biomedical related research in Luxembourg.
In 1999, we established the National Research Fund in order to give a new momentum to research in our country. The National Research Fund was created to help focus R&D efforts in Luxembourg on a number of particularly promising areas and subjects. Along with three other programmes, the National Research Fund established the BIOTECHNOLOGY AND HEALTH Programme which is looking at cancer cardio- and cerebro-vascular diseases and immunology intervention.
Its objective is to contribute to the qualitative improvement of the prevention, detection and treatment of both cancer and cardio/ cerebro-vascular diseases, and to develop new strategies for the specific modulation of the immune system.
I am pleased to tell you that the extension to the Biotechnology and Health Programme will have a direct link to the topics of this week’s conference: the AGEING Programme will attempt to analyse the dementia process and neuro-degenerative symptoms linked to an ageing population.
These and all the other research programmes and activities in Luxembourg are of course only successful in this small country because international cooperation has been given the highest priority.
The results of this approach are encouraging: Luxembourg researchers are more successful in gaining European funding, according to the recent European Union’s Research Framework Programme. For example, in the Information Society Technology Programme, our public research centre’s success rate was 57% while European average was 25%.
Luxembourg’s recent participation in ESA, ESF, ERCIM, EUROHORCS and our plans to join EMBC and EMBL are making Luxembourg’s research more visible for the international scientific community. Exchanges between the national and the international scientific community will be further developed and measures to foster this have already been set in place.
Let me mention in this context the Accompanying Measure MOBILITY of the National Research Fund which allows researchers, from outside the EU for example, to come for short stays to Luxembourg.
The same applies for Luxembourg’s researchers wishing to spend time in an other institution inside or outside the EU.
As I said before, this can only be achieved through efficient cooperation and strong partners. Conferences like this are a good means of fostering the spirit of cooperation - building bridges between the countries in the field of science and technology.
I sincerely wish the organisers and all the participants that one of the outcomes of this conference will be the development of even stronger cooperative links in this exciting field of research.
A further aspect of a successful research environment is the good cooperation between research and higher education. Luxembourg is responding to the challenge by developing cooperation between research and higher education establishments in Luxembourg and abroad.
A Parliamentary Act on the future development of the University of Luxembourg is at its final stages of preparation and we are developing cooperation agreements with Universities and research centers in Europe and beyond in order to establish joint academic curricula.
I am confident that this approach will pave the way for Luxembourg to be a strong partner in the European and international scientific community.
Distinguished guests, Ladies and Gentlemen,
I thank you for the excellent opportunity I was given to address your meeting. I congratulate the organising committee on the excellent preparation of this meeting. The topics studied and the high international reputation of the participants ensure the success of your conference and its contribution to the advancement of knowledge in the field of biomedical research.
Let me wish you a successful meeting. I trust that the exchange of results and the collation of new ideas will encourage all of you to pursue your work at your universities, research institutes and industry laboratories with a view to further advancing knowledge and science, while paying full attention to the ethical aspects of your work.
Let me conclude by wishing you a pleasant stay in our country and expressing my hope that in the course of the next days you will also have the opportunity to enjoy the beautiful surroundings and to appreciate the architecture of the historical centre of the city of Luxembourg, which, I believe, provide a pleasant setting for both work and thought as well as recreation after a busy meeting.