LERU calls for ‘simple and straightforward’ H2020
The League of European Research Universities (LERU) has released details of its submission to the European Commission’s call on how to ensure Horizon 2020 stays “simple and straightforward”.
In its proposals to the Horizon 2020 simplification survey, LERU calls on the Commission to ‘simplify the grant preparation stage’, ‘considerably revise the evaluation system’ and ‘clarify rules on third party engagement’.
The organisation, which represents 21 leading research universities in Europe, said there was also the need to ‘continue to improve the participant portal’, ‘deal with oversubscription and low success rates’, ‘be flexible within the required time to grant’ and ‘improve the support delivered by NCPs’.
Commenting, Professor Kurt Deketelaere, secretary-general of LERU, said: “LERU is looking forward to discuss these comments and recommendations with the European Commission and other stakeholders in the field. We were pleased with the original simplification approach and its implementation, but more can be done to KISS – Keep it Simple and Straightforward – Horizon 2020.”
Other proposals from LERU include changing unit costs in clinical trials ‘because they do not work in practice’; ‘reimbursement of personnel cost should be based on actual costs’; ‘considerably increase’ pre-financing, which LERU cites as too low and emphasises the need to warn beneficiaries; and ‘do not introduce additional red tape regarding ethical issues and research integrity’.
You can read the full list of suggestions here.
