EU must boost research into health and climate, reports say

The slice of Horizon Europe to be spent on health research is too small, a university group has said, as a report warned about the impending health impacts of climate change.

The European Commission’s proposed budget for the health theme, or “cluster”, of the EU’s 2021-27 R&D programme Horizon Europe will not provide the results the EU should aspire to, the Guild of European Research-Intensive Universities said in a position paper on 6 June.

The Commission has suggested that the health cluster should be allocated €7.7 billion from Horizon Europe’s overall proposed budget of €94.1bn. Of the five originally proposed clusters, three have larger suggested budgets: the digital and industry cluster and the climate, energy and mobility cluster would both get €15bn, while the food and natural resources cluster would get €10bn.