This Thursday, the Spanish Minister of Science and Innovation, Cristina Garmendia, opened the Science against Poverty International Conference in La Granja (Segovia); the event, which forms part of the Spanish Presidency of the EU, is intended to highlight 'research and technology's enormous potential' for promoting human development.

The Science against Poverty International Conference brings together around 300 international experts from universities, research bodies, NGOs, governments and companies from 46 countries, who will make recommendations on how European and national R&D+i policies should be designed and adapted to reflect a responsible commitment on the part of science programmes to combating poverty and social exclusion.

The conference's conclusions will be presented at the May Council of European Competitiveness Ministers in Brussels, at which a joint position is likely to be adopted on the social aspect of the European Research Area (ERA) and its bearing on the fight against poverty, thus meeting one of the commitments made by the Ministry of Science and Innovation at the start of the Spanish Presidency of the European Union.

Along with Cristina Garmendia, the Chair of the Reflection Group on the Future of the European Union,  Felipe González, the writer and science broadcaster, Eduardo Punset, and the Director of the Barcelona Centre for International Health Research (CRESIB), Pedro Alonso, took part in the opening session.

Mr González, in the framework of the European Year Against Poverty and Social Exclusion, stated that poverty is an ethical and economic problem. The first, in his opinion, is solved by giving food to the poorest countries, a form of aid which does not solve the economic problem, 'which is a development problem and which depends on training human capital'.

The chair of the European reflection group emphasised that the EU is the leading development partner, even if with regard to technology matters, 'Europe hasn't been paying attention for twenty years'. In the communication age there is less scientific mobility, in percentage terms, between European universities than there was a century ago,' Mr González said; he pointed out that the Lisbon Strategy has been a 'failure' with regard to R&D+i as not only has no progress been made in this time, but rather 'the EU has fallen back'.