Universities warn EU about ‘wasteful’ budget cuts

A plan to cut €413 million from next year's Horizon 2020 budget would cause a wasteful rejection of an excessive number of projects, universities have warned.

The European University Association has called on the European Parliament to “defend EU investment in research and innovation”, as national governments in the Council of the EU seek a total of €1.51 billion of reductions to the bloc’s proposed 2020 budget.

“The Council severely undermined EU ambitions in the field of research and innovation for next year,” with its proposed €413m cut to the Horizon 2020 R&D funding programme, the EUA said on 19 September. “This will further aggravate the underfunding issue for Horizon 2020, leading to extremely low success rates, a waste of resources and low motivation for excellent researchers to take part.”