Image: Ivan Radic [CC BY 2.0], via Flickr
Research organisations want accounting rules for public-private partnerships to better reflect their expenses
Efforts to simplify the rules of EU-funded public-private R&D partnerships on topics including drug and aviation innovation risk excluding non-profit research bodies from the initiatives, an association of such bodies has said.
The European Association of Research and Technology Organisations, which represents over 350 non-profit R&D institutions, rang alarm bells about draft accounting rules for the next iteration of the partnerships on 22 July.
Partnerships will receive nearly €25 billion from the 2021-27 EU R&D programme, Horizon Europe, while participants will also make contributions to their costs. But Earto said proposed accounting rules would mean non-profits will not get their true contributions recognised.
Some of Earto’s concerns focus on certain project-related costs borne by universities and specialist institutes, such as the electricity bills from running research infrastructures. These are known as ‘in-kind’ contributions.
The European Commission has proposed changing the rules for partnerships in a way that would make some in-kind contributions ineligible. Earto said this would “create unintended barriers to entry for non-profit[s]”.
Risk of lower funding rates
Sophie Viscido, a senior advisor at Earto, told Research Professional News the rules would make auditing project costs and calculating non-EU investments easier for the Commission but would undersell the true contribution of non-profits, making them less attractive partners for industry.
If the rules are adopted, Viscido said the self-governing partnerships could decide to lower their funding rates for non-profits. “This is not a solution,” she said. According to Earto, such a move “would considerably lower the possibility for non-profit organisations to participate”.
Viscido said industry has also “had a lot of discussions with the Commission on this in-kind topic as well, as this creates issues also on their side”.
The Commission did not respond to a request for comment.
The Commission launched the partnerships in June, but their rules are still being amended by the Council of the EU and European Parliament, with the aim of being adopted later this year. Earto has suggested tweaks that it said will fix its concerns, including making more in-kind costs eligible as contributions.