But it certainly will if nothing changes. The E.U. supports science through its Framework Program, which finances collaborative projects, typically involving 7 to 10 laboratories, in various European countries. European officials say politics and protests have not affected decisions on which plant research to support, no matter what scientists say. Rather, officials say, the change in patterns of support represents a desire to boost European competitiveness by favoring research that will have a relatively quick payoff in the marketplace. That approach inevitably puts plant-biotechnology research at a disadvantage, because such efforts typically take 10 to 15 years before they produce a new variety ready for market.
Researchers say that, as a result, a number of excellent projects have lost their financing.
Major research facilities, like the John Innes Center in Britain and the Max Planck Institute for Plant-Breeding Research in Germany, which have received support for years, are now getting turned down, says Ingo Potrykus, a professor emeritus at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, in Zurich. Mr. Potrykus, whose own plant-biotechnology research has been widely praised, lost his European Union support. But the scientists' request for more money, for research on increasing the concentration of beta-carotene, was turned down in the latest round of the program's reviews. Public-opinion polls show that a large majority of Europeans are opposed to genetically modified crops. In Britain, the public was inclined to believe a researcher who claimed in The Lancet last fall that genetically altered potatoes had damaged rats' guts, and not the scientists who said they had debunked his research.