The League of European Research Universities (LERU) has published its response to the recently announced Horizon Europe consultation.
In its contribution to the European Commission (EC)’s consultation on ‘past, current and future R&I Framework Programmes’, LERU has shared ten recommendations aiming at improving the functioning and impact of Horizon Europe and some ideas for the future:
- To stop redirecting funding from Horizon Europe to other programmes;
- To avoid adding more new funding priorities or programming layers to pillar II and to rethink how to better organise and reduce the programming of collaborative research in the next Framework Programme (FP);
- To move from pure rhetoric on synergies to stimulating them in practice and to keep synergies in mind when developing new programmes;
- To increase funding for European Research Council (ERC) and Marie SkÅodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA), given that many excellent proposals cannot currently be funded because of budget restrictions;
- To continue the European Innovation Council (EIC), especially the EIC Pathfinder and EIC Transition schemes, and to maintain its bottom-up character;
- To further stimulate interdisciplinarity in pillar II and to improve the integration of Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities;
- To realise funding lines along the innovation chain in pillar II by introducing lower TRL research opportunities in pillar II in general and in the missions in particular;
- To increase accessibility and transparency of the different types of partnerships;
- To carefully evaluate new widening tools and continue those that have proven worth the effort such as the ERA fellowships, ERA chairs and Twinning; and
- To ensure collaboration with the United Kingdom and Switzerland as soon as possible, both through association and in strategic areas.
Further information can be found in the detailed response document available here.
As a reminder for subscribers, the consultation closes on 23 February (midnight Brussels time).