Foundations tackle barriers to closer collaboration across the EU

The European Commission is pushing for better collaboration with philanthropic research funders across Europe, in an effort to increase the impact of their funds.

Representatives of several philanthropic foundations met research commissioner Carlos Moedas in Brussels on 15 September. One topic of discussion was to explore the possibility of Commission-coordinated joint activities under Framework 9.

“The Commission can more readily collaborate with industry through something like the Innovative Medicines Initiative than it can with foundations—there isn’t an established mechanism,” Stuart Pritchard, EU affairs manager at the Wellcome Trust, told Research Europe. “There’s a desire to look at whether the Commission can make collaboration more straightforward.”