A week is a long time in politics, as one-time British prime minister Harold Wilson famously said. But in European Union (EU) politics, a decade can seem very short indeed. Just look at the ten-year strategic plan for economic growth and improved welfare that EU heads of state signed up to in Lisbon in 2000, in which research had a central role. The three EU bodies - the Council, Parliament and Commission - each realized the urgent need to make Europe work as a single territory for scientists, rather than separate bordered countries - now numbering 27 - with their own languages and habits. They agreed to create the European Research Area, intended to free the movement of scientists between countries by breaking down barriers such as difficulties in transferring pensions or transporting national research grants. They endorsed the concept of a single patent that would be valid EU-wide.
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