© RDECOM
© RDECOM

Challenges on the Horizon in Europe

The goals for the EU’s next research and innovation framework programme, Horizon 2020, have been set very high – fostering world-class science, attracting and promoting talent, developing top research infrastructures, tackling the grand societal challenges of our time and making the EU more competitive on the global stage. Yet, according to Professor Manfred Horvat, an independent expert on European and International research and technology co-operation at the Vienna University of Technology, key questions still remain as to the degree to which these objectives will be met.

It’s been announced that Horizon 2020 is likely to receive nearly €10bn less in funding than previously thought. What impact do you believe this will have on European research and development?

The result of the European Council regarding the budget for Horizon 2020 is rather disappointing, though one should remember that this is not the final result as there are still on-going negotiations with the European Parliament. Nevertheless, I think it’s a concern and also disappointing that the heads of state on the one side agree on Europe 2020 and all the commitments of the Innovation Union and the other flagship initiatives, yet then cannot really place Horizon 2020 and wider research and innovation as a top priority. This, in my view, is a rather strange situation.

I don’t think the €80bn budget proposed for Horizon 2020 by the Commission was particularly ambitious as it is effectively a continuation of the present state of funding. Reducing the budget by €10bn is almost a bit ridiculous. For example, if €5bn were taken from the agriculture budget and €5bn from the structural funds budget, few would have even noticed this loss.

I’m not sure if we can be very optimistic in regaining a budget of €80bn or more for Horizon 2020, but we can hope for some improvements in the negotiations with the Parliament. However, despite having €10bn less in funding, I do believe that most of the activities proposed will still be implemented but, necessarily, with lower success rates.

One of the key goals of Horizon 2020 is to help generate economic growth and jobs. To what extent will the programme achieve this goal?

For me there is no doubt that the framework programme has a strong role to play in respect to both growth and jobs, which is also shown by the forecasts in the ex-ante Impact assessment. The integration of education, research and innovation in the knowledge triangle will contribute to these developments. The framework programme utilises synergies and complementarities in Europe which is important for making optimal use of the distributed potentials for research and innovation.

The framework programme is the largest collaborative transnational research programme in the world and it has a very important role developing new knowledge for new products and new services – there is really no similar programme like this. European researchers are trained to work in interdisciplinary distributed teams addressing complex problems.

There are attempts to create major research areas and encourage collaborative research in Africa, Asia and the USA, but progress is slow and overall collaboration in research is much weaker compared to Europe.

To what extent do you believe Horizon 2020’s pillars of Industrial Leadership, Excellent Science and Societal Challenges adequately reflect the challenges facing Europe today?

I think Horizon 2020 will do a good job of tackling Europe’s problems connected with societal, economic and scientific challenges.

The Societal Challenges pillar will address the main challenges facing Europe and the world by ensuring that researchers from academia, research organisations and private companies will be able to work together in interdisciplinary and intersectoral settings addressing these problems. This will also be an area for attracting young people into science and technology.

The Industrial Leadership pillar is built on the experience that there is a need for more research and innovation in industry and SMEs. Industry will play a major role in developing the programme.  In addition, there will be specific targeted measures for SMEs. I expect that these new aspects will lead to an increased participation of industry and SMEs in Horizon 2020.

Finally, the Excellence Science pillar is well designed ensuring that the knowledge base for innovation is laid by bottom-up research, promotion of talent and new research infrastructures. However, I believe it should be named differently. The whole Horizon 2020 programme is about excellence and the misunderstanding has to be avoided that only this pillar will work towards excellence. This, however, is a minor point.

Last but not least, the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT) is an extremely important initiative, though I think there is still potential for further development in order to achieve its full potential. The EIT is a totally new type of organisation and not simply a big collaborative and integrated project. It is the first European initiative making the knowledge triangle a reality by integrating education, research and innovation. The EIT has the potential to become a flagship institution for the 21st Century as it connects the actors of the innovation web in different regional co-location centres thus building bridges and communication channels between different markets. There is a lot to learn on how to create such a new type of hybrid institution combining co-location and trans-regional linkages which it unique in the world.

I have the feeling that despite sometimes having great ideas and the ability to create new initiatives, the EU still binds itself through too strict regulations and audits – I don’t think there is any institution in the world that is under more scrutiny than the Commission! Therefore, simplification is a top priority and I hope that the very ambitious proposals of the Commission for Horizon 2020 are not curtailed by new restrictive requirements coming from the various EU institutions.

How much do you think Horizon 2020 will increase the EU’s international research competitiveness?

I am a bit concerned that the framework programme may be too strongly concentrating on Europe internally – in my view, Horizon 2020 still lacks a strong international and global perspective. Globalisation is everywhere. Many companies operate all over the world. Universities are also operating globally, e.g. setting up campuses in China and are entering into global alliances. Therefore, a ‘Europe only’ strategy would not be appropriate for strengthening Europe’s position in the world. Like past framework programmes, Horizon 2020 will be open to all countries in the world which is an excellent opportunity that should be extensively exploited. There is no other programme with such features at any other places in the world.

The creation of the European Research Area is an extremely important initiative that, however, member states are developing just too slowly. There is a danger that they still look too closely at the national level and are not taking account of the benefits that can be gained when working together at a supranational level. If we don’t take major steps towards closer collaboration, we will face many difficulties competing at a global scale and Europe will be endangered of simply becoming less important because we are just too complex and fragmented.

For example, China really wants to work with Europe and would rather not deal with 27 separate member states or even more regions. As an example, the National Natural Science Foundation of China has more than 30 agreements with different funding agencies in Europe yet is facing increasing problems to cope with the different rules, requirements and evaluation procedures that are being requested by the different agencies.

Member states should be aware that they are much stronger when they join forces in specific areas and then jointly negotiate and form collaborative agreements or compete with the United States or China. Nanotechnology is an example where European investments in R&D are higher but impact is lower than US activities because programmes and initiatives are not co-ordinated in Europe. Success really depends on the partners involved and whether they are open to work together in strategic areas based on critical mass where there is scope for real breakthroughs rather than simple incremental improvements. Only then will international partnership and competition really work.

We still have a lot to invest into addressing the innovation chain, but I’m optimistic. I think it is possible and Horizon 2020 could really make a difference.

Professor Manfred Horvat

www.manfredhorvat.at