European Research Council wants doubled budget for next Horizon

The European Research Council has joined several major research organisations in calling for a doubling of the budget for the successor to the €100 billion (£86 billion) funding programme, Horizon Europe, while also recommending an increase to its own funding.

The European Union’s next research and innovation framework programme, currently known as FP10, is in the early design stages, with discussions under way through the European Research Area and Innovation Committee (ERAC) task force. The European Commission is expected to deliver a proposal by mid-2025.

“The ERC has given the EU framework programmes a new dimension that complements traditional top-down approaches, and it provides a benchmark for excellence in European science,” the funder’s scientific council said in a statement. “The EU should build on this success and strengthen the ERC in the next research framework programme.”

Europe is “struggling to keep up” with global competitors in scientific output, research funding and specialised industry, the funding body said, adding: “The ERC has funded over 13,000 projects but has not been able to fund many equally outstanding proposals due to a continuing lack of appropriate budget.

“The ERC’s current budget is about €2 billion annually, but for the ERC to meet its full potential and for its systemic effects to be felt throughout Europe, it was estimated in 2003 that it would need a budget corresponding to 5 per cent of Europe’s national research agencies, now equivalent to around €5 billion per year. This still holds true today.”

The ERC went on to call for the preservation of its “independence and autonomy” under the new framework programme in order to “safeguard its position as Europe’s top frontier research funder”.

Earlier this month, the European University Association, Science Europe and the European Association of Research and Technology published an open letter on FP10 to Iliana Ivanova, European commissioner for research and innovation.

The umbrella groups urged that the budget for the framework programme be doubled to €200 billion, citing a “noticeable gap” between European research and innovation investment and that of the United States and China.

The budget must be ring-fenced, the groups said, to prevent appropriation of funds for non-research purposes, while the addition of new priorities must be accompanied by additional funding. “These measures will ensure greater stability of the programme budget,” the letter explained.

“Additionally, it is important to rebalance the support provided to various stages of the RD&I continuum, including bottom-up basic research, applied research, development and innovation.”

emily.dixon@timeshighereducation.com