Professor Kurt Deketelaere © LERU
LERU: budget thoughts
European universities are set to benefit from millions of euros of new funding under Horizon 2020 to help sponsor pioneering new research. The League of European Research Universities (LERU) represents 21 leading research universities from across ten European countries with prominent members including the Universities of Oxford, Cambridge, Leiden and Zurich. The organisation was founded in 2002 and, collectively, members have received significant amounts of funding from research councils and through contract research. More than 20% of ERC grants have been awarded to researchers at LERU universities.
Professor Kurt Deketelaere was appointed secretary general of LERU in 2009 before being reappointed in 2013 until 2019; he is also a part-time professor of law at the University of Leuven, Belgium. Speaking to Horizon2020projects.com, Deketelaere outlined LERU’s reaction to the Horizon 2020 budget deal and the estimated €71bn of total funding made available under the next research and innovation framework programme.
Although we are yet to see the final text, I would say that we at LERU are very pleased with the outcome. This is a project that LERU has been working on for nearly three years, talking with DG Research and Innovation and holding discussions far before the proposals were even given. We are certainly very pleased with this result for Horizon 2020.
With regard to the budget, expectations were originally higher – the European Commission originally proposed €80bn and then the European Parliament raised this to €100bn. The Council of the European Union never expressed itself to its budget preference yet during the Cypriot Presidency, we were down to an estimated €55bn for the next framework programme. At the end of the day, the estimated €70bn budget for Horizon 2020 is an acceptable figure for LERU because it is a more realistic budget (although we were hoping for €80bn). Research, innovation and education are very important fields and I must say that these areas have been saved from any significant cuts.
Budget distribution
We will keep a very close eye on how the Commission is going to view the internal distribution of the money within Horizon 2020. We were very glad with the safeguarding of funding for the European Research Council and the funding of the Marie Curie Actions, a very important element for us. It is really important that the Excellent Science pillar was absolutely safeguarded because for us as universities, it is an important instrument.
At the end of the day the Commission can be very proud of this final result – I think that the Parliament got nearly everything it wanted and I think it is very pleased with the end result. I think that it’s very acceptable financially.
LERU members
The Commission has given stakeholder organisations the opportunity of helping to develop the next framework programme and we have been mobilising our 21 universities to become involved in this process. External input has always been very well received and if we now look two years down the road, after two years of intensive but positive lobbying, I can only say that our members are very satisfied with the result.
The rules of funding, the primary goal of simplification of the whole framework programme has certainly been realised. There has been a lot of openness from the Commission, the Council and the Parliament regarding this simplification effort and I think in regard to finances and process too, this has been a very satisfactory exercise for us.
Let’s hope the Parliament can now rubber stamp these agreements so the Commission can finalise the arrangements in preparation for Horizon 2020 to begin in January 2014.
Professor Dr Kurt Deketelaere
