President of EuroScience surprised by Bill Gate`s speech on EuroScience

[Orstio]

http://www.everything-science.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=102&Itemid=2

At the Government Leaders Forum in Prague Wednesday 2 February, Bill Gates announced a new Microsoft Initiative called EuroScience in his keynote speach to over 500 government leaders and public officials. The 40 million dollar Microsoft version of EuroScience is a partnership scheme between the software company and European research institutions offering PhD and Post-Doc grants for students under strict licence conditions.

The already existing Euroscience Association was created in 1997 and has more than 2100 individual and 31 institutional members. In August 2004 it organised the first pan-european scientific meeting in Stockholm, EuroScience Open Forum 2004, with more than 1800 participants. A number of very prominent European scientists and people interested in science are member of Euroscience.. . .

[Astronuc]

   Seems to be a slight conflict.  Someone needs to do his homework.   

[rayblanc]

Quote of Connerade sounds like piss-poor black mail to MS. MS is doing a great thing in Europe and all Connerade finds to do is beg for money in a most cynical way! There are dozens of other organisations or groups which use “euroscience”. It’s not a trademark is it?

Depressing.

[Degett]

Congratulations you were one of the first to pick up this topic.

It is certainly serious for a relatively small grass-roots organisation to have its name taken over by a big company. This is not about money but about the brand name. What would Bill Gates say if we started a "Microsoft Initiative" and began to make policy statements in that name - that would not be accepted. Euroscience is a legal protected name - but not in all Europe.

Euroscience has a very good reputation and was able to raise about 3 Million Dollars last year for its EuroScience initiative. Therefore our name is certainly an important commodity for us. Even worse are the policy messages from Bill Gates which may confuse people who are used to listen to policy messages from Euroscience.

Microsoft has contacted me. They promised to find another name and apologize for using our name - But the official response from Microsoft remains to be seen published. In the meantime on Google I get 12.000 hits on Euroscience/Bill Gates and 300 hits on Euroscience/Connerade - the president of Euroscience. 

Best Regards

J. Degett

[remcook]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4243321.stm