EUREC: ‘Don’t mix national and EU funding’
Keith Melton, the president of the European Renewable Energy Research Centre (EUREC), has warned that national and EU finance streams should not be mixed.
Melton said the EU’s Strategy Energy Technology Plan (SET Plan) had risen the profile of energy technology but that further investment was required in the EU’s energy sector, particularly from the EU’s next research and innovation funding programme.
“In order to ensure progression in renewables, there’s a clear need for more research investment within Horizon 2020 and also stronger policies,” he commented.
“The EU recently opened a public consultation on energy technology policy. EUREC’s input to this consultation will focus on an EU construct known as the SET Plan.”
And he advised: “The SET Plan, since its inception in 2007, has helped to elevate the importance of energy technology policy in Brussels circles. It has sought to reorganise the way in which the EU executes innovation policy in the energy field. In particular, and this is one of the big ideas of Horizon 2020, it wants to bring EU and member state funding closer together. In the future, the European Commission would like to combine its budget with the budgets of member state money.”
Melton warned against combining national and supranational funds, saying key projects could lose out as national interests take precedence over tackling the major challenges.
“I see a danger here; the Commission, with its framework programmes, has an opportunity to fund the best projects wherever partners in the consortium may be located in Europe. That opportunity should not be squandered. If national money is mixed with Horizon 2020 in a common pot, the contributing countries, through the relative and absolute amounts of their contributions, will influence the choice of projects.
“The best projects might therefore be no longer be selected, but rather combinations of projects that enable the member states to feel they are claiming a fair amount from the pot.
“Combining member states’ and EU money is unnecessarily becoming an ever greater preoccupation of the European Commission. The conditions attached by member states to the disbursement of their money in a particular sector can be different to the conditions that the EU attaches to its grants, while still serving a European RDI strategy. EUREC Agency will continue to contribute to this debate on optimising the effectiveness of combined member states and EU R&D spend.”
‘Secure, clean and efficient energy’ in a better society is key objective under the Societal Challenges pillar of Horizon 2020. The sector is in addition to Horizon 2020 financing for EURATOM and will see funding worth €5.7bn and €1bn respectively.
“The final decision on Horizon 2020’s scope and design is dependent on discussions over the EU’s budget for the period 2014-2020, which are on-going. Other components of the budget are being discussed in parallel, such as the EU’s regional policy funds. These funds are managed by the member states at the level of regional governments. They could complement Horizon 2020 funding by financing installations that will use technologies ready to make their market debut,” Melton concluded.
