BGRS’2004 : INTAS / FP 6 Event ' EU - NIS Partnering in Bio - Informatics ‘

1. BGRS’2004: INTAS/ FP6 Event'EU-NIS Partnering in Bio-Informatics‘ Mikhail S. Gelfand

2. INTAS project 99-1476 (2000-2002)Methods, algorithms and software for functional and structural annotation of complete genomes • Four Russian teams • Moscow • Pushchino • Four INTAS teams • EMBL • France • Germany • Austria • Established history of collaboration • Diverse, but common interests in bionformatics: • functional annotation of genes • comparative analysis of regulation • protein structure and folding • Algorithm development and biological applications

3. Publications Russian – all journals Russian – internatio-nal journals INTAS

4. Joint publications(Russian+INTAS) + “in press”

5. Observation Increased productivity: • of single groups (immediately) • of collaborative projects (with some delay)

6. An attempt to extend and re-apply

7. Outcome Score 84 with threshold 87

8. Sour grapes:Personal impressions about the procedure • Electronic system too formal and rigid, the structure of the proposal too detailed and not flexible • Formal insistence on collaboration and diversity => the need to filter out “token” groups=> many purely “management” evaluation points • Obscure requirements for “dissemination”, “application”, “impact” etc. Is not scientific novelty and importance of the project and competence of the groups sufficient in an academic (as opposed to industry-oriented) competition? • Too many evaluation points, some duplicating each other, without clear distinction between them => confused referees. E.g. what is the difference between • is the project adequately focused in terms of research objectives • how well targeted is the research programme or between • how realistic it is that the research objectives can be achieved • how realistic and feasible is the proposed research programme

9. One more story: collaboration from scratch New oligogalacturonate transporter E. chrysanthemi Y. pestis K. pneumoniae

10. Prediction … … and (independent) confirmation

11. What happened then: July 2002 – July 2004 • Dmitry Rodionov went to an International Summer School “From Genome to Life” on Corsica instead of BGRS’2002, • and met there Nicole Hugouvieux-Cotte-Pattat, • and they’ve established a collaboration, first by e-mail, • but then in 2003 applied for a travel grant from the ESF programme on Integrated Approaches to the Functional Genomics and got it, • and in October-December of 2003 >10 genes from this regulon have been identified and confirmed (D.R., M.G., N.H.-K.-P., Microbiology , in press) • although the application to the INTAS Young Research award in 2004 was unsuccessful. We will try again.

12. Problems with FP6 • Two main problems: • it is difficult to understand, what initiatives are relevant to one’s group/research/collaboration • even if it seems that a call/initiative is relevant, it is not clear what are the next steps: what/when/how should be done • Reasons: • Structure of the FP6 site • difficult to find relevant information • Merging of political issues and technical descriptions • a lot of unnecessary “motivational” stuff • insufficiently clear instructions for project preparation

13. Successful programs • International Science Foundation (the Soros Fund) • Eastern Europe / CIS program of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute Features: • Calls with clearly defined eligibility criteria and well-described submission procedure • One group per project (not applicable here) • Minimum formalities • Simple structure of the proposal • No need for planning far ahead on the timescale of months • Funding decisions independent from Russian authorities

14. Some suggestions • The submitting procedure, starting with the announcement, needs to be simplified, made more clear and transparent • The evaluation criteria should be more merit-oriented and less formal: • simpler criteria: importance, novelty, feasibility, competence • detailed plans do not necessarily mean good projects:the entire management / cost description / overall planning sections may have only two possible grades, clearly inadequate or adequate (everything else)

15. suggestions cont’d • Decision-making should be independent from Russian agencies • opening programs and establishing objectives • distribution of individual awards • Preference to • established collaborations with good record or • new collaborations among clearly complementary groups • Less emphasis on “networking” • huge collaborative projects, “networks of excellence” , etc.: are not they somewhat artificial? • Allow projects with small number of participants • One Russian and one INTAS lab might suffice for a strong project: larger projects need to be justified

16. and more suggestions • Three ways to start a successful project: • had a long history of collaboration • started from direct communication via e-mail • knew about each other and met at a conference => The need to support conferences,especially international conferences in Russia (e.g. BGRS in Novosibirsk in even years, MCCMB in Moscow in odd years): • that’s where real contacts form and collaborations start • important for students and young scientists (who cannot en masse go to conferences abroad) • for young scientists and senior scientists with good record: support presentation at international conferences, if strong results. Matching funds? • Creation of a traditional natural environment is more productive than establishing partnerships by formal “matchmaking”

17. Disclaimer • of course, all this does not mean that INTAS is not doing an important job and doing it well: it does.