Lobbying call for H2020 funding
Further political pressure has begun to secure the budget for Horizon 2020 after the head of the European Research Council (ERC) said she was frustrated by the European Council’s Horizon 2020 budget.
Helga Nowotny shared her thoughts with the scientific journal Nature, describing herself as a “realistic optimist”. She commented: “The way it looks now, with all the arguments that were on the table in favour of promoting research in Europe, that decision is disappointing. But discussions are not yet over. We all have to wait to see the final figures and agreement.”
The outgoing president of the ERC added that changes were also needed to help better support European research with the formation of a common research and development policy.
Last week, the European Council agreed a budget of €71bn for Horizon 2020, a 12% drop on that proposed by the European Commission. According to Hungarian MEP Edit Herczog, rapporteur of the EU Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) in the European Parliament, it is not yet known how this will impact on the three pillars of the research and innovation framework.
“The research community needs to stay loud,” Herczog said. “Your opinions are important – you need to make yourselves heard in the coming months, too. The competition for this money will just become tougher and tougher until the final decisions are made.”
Representatives from Universities UK are now once again stepping up their campaign to protect the Horizon 2020 budget, as well as that for Erasmus, the EU’s university student exchange programme. In a statement, Eric Thomas, president of the higher education action group, said: “These programmes provide research grants for the UK’s universities and mobility grants for UK students and will play a leading role in delivering much needed growth for the UK economy.”
A European Commission spokesman has said that even with a reduced budget, Horizon 2020 will benefit from a significant rise in research funding compared to FP7.
The MFF will now be debated by the European Parliament, and MEPs will need to agree to the proposed European budget before it takes effect.
