Nobel winners advise against H2020 cuts

Leading academics from across Europe have written to European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker and the EU member state leaders calling for the budget of Horizon 2020 not to be cut. The Investment Plan for Europe sees €2.7bn of funding transferred from the EU framework programme to the European Fund for Strategic Investments (EFSI).

In a letter seen by The Bureau of Investigative Journalism, the 27 Nobel academics say that such reductions would harm Europe’s research reputation, drawing attention to the cuts to the European Research Council. Signatories to the letter include the president of The Royal Society, Sir Paul Nurse; Sir Andre Geim, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in 2010 in recognition of his work on graphene; and Professor Sir John Sulston, founder director of the Wellcome Trust Sanger Centre, where part of the human genome was sequenced.

Expressing their ‘dismay’, the leading academics say: “By cutting this funding, the EU will send a message that Europe is not the place to do high level science, and the ideas that we need to really flourish will instead go to other parts of the world. Horizon 2020 and the ERC are an indispensable long term investment in Europe’s future. They are key tools for generating knowledge that drives our economic wellbeing and improvements in our health and the quality of our lives.

“Europe’s long term sustainable economic future can only be built on continued research and innovation – a point well recognised by European industry. If we do not get smarter we will get poorer.”

In related news, the UK Business Secretary Vince Cable has said that whilst he welcomes the EFSI, the plan should not harm the country’s science sector, according to The Bureau of Investigative Journalism.