Not open enough

The European Commission says it wants to make Horizon 2020 “open to the world”, but as Craig Nicholson reports, it has a long way to go.

Participation in Horizon 2020 from outside the EU is a major focus for the European Commission, and the research commissioner Carlos Moedas has made being “open to the world” one of his three priorities. But reality is failing to keep pace, as countries that aren’t full or associate members of Horizon 2020 have accounted for just 2.4 per cent of all Horizon 2020 participation, down from almost 5 per cent under Framework 7. 

At a meeting on the topic hosted by the Informal Group of RTD Liaison Offices in Brussels on 17 October, participants heard that about one-third of the drop was due to the EU’s 2012 decision to no longer automatically fund participants from “mid-income” countries such as China, India and Brazil.