Many bids fail because their authors haven’t realised what the programme is designed to do. The best research stands as good a chance as ever, says David Talbot.
Even the briefest of glances at online discussions about EU research programmes will reveal a host of complaints about the poor success rate of bids. The effort required to put in an application, and the slim chance of it paying off, it is argued, will lead researchers to turn their backs on EU research funding.
This is despite the fact that changes have been made for Horizon 2020 in response to widespread discontent with the slowness and complexity of previous Framework programmes. Many of these changes have been designed to simplify bidding, speed up contract awards and encourage small and medium-sized businesses and organisations in the most recent member states to participate.
The changes have indeed sped things up, but with significant consequences for both individual submissions and the overall success rate.
One of the main simplifications has been the removal of the negotiation phase that came between evaluation and contracting in Framework 7. This has taken weeks out of the time between a bid’s acceptance and the signing of the contract; the flipside is that applicants only get one shot at specifying a project.
This means that bids that would have passed the evaluation stage in Framework 7 with recommendations for things to be sorted out in negotiation are now rejected. The message is that bid writers need to focus more on their submission, rather than blaming the European Commission for rejecting a poorly specified bid.
Another change has been to make calls under Horizon 2020 much less specific than those under the previous Framework programmes. As a result, far more teams have found opportunities to put in bids—vastly outstripping any increase in available funding and inevitably leading to a lower success rate.
But from my experience as an evaluator and rapporteur in Horizon 2020, it is clear that the people putting in bids are just as much to blame for the low success rate as the Commission is. The purpose of Horizon 2020 is to fund multinational, multiyear and multimillion-euro projects. Many bids lack the required scale or vision, even though they have no doubt allowed a research funding specialist somewhere to tick the box for a bid submitted. My feeling is that, for the programmes I have worked on, if you take out the time-wasting bids, success rates are broadly similar to those in Framework 7 and many national funding programmes.
Researchers really need to take on board what Horizon 2020 is designed to do. It provides big money—and 100 per cent funding—to tackle big questions. The Commission wants to fund big projects and it expects big results. Such work is likely to be beyond the capacity of national research programmes.
Most proposals have little problem addressing the scientific and technical aspects of these big questions, but that is only part of the story. To be successful, a proposal needs to score as highly for its management as it does for the science. Almost every evaluator will tell you how heartbreaking it is to see brilliant science scuppered by inadequate management planning.
Previously, this could have been addressed in the negotiation phase, but no longer. You can call this bureaucracy, but Horizon 2020 collaborations are, by their very nature, massive projects. They need a high level of management input and skill to fulfil their potential and allow researchers to do what they do best.
Similarly, exploitation of results is as important as management and scientific excellence. The Commission was rightly criticised for allowing the results of past Framework projects to disappear into a black hole when funding ended. As a result, it is determined to ensure that Horizon 2020 projects have a real impact. Just saying that you will set up a website or host a conference isn’t going to score well.
The rules of the game are unlikely to change during Horizon 2020. There won’t be much more money, and the calls aren’t going to become tighter. No doubt there will still be more excellent projects than the Commission can afford to fund, but if your proposal is truly excellent, my sense from the first round of evaluation is that your chances are as good as they were in Framework 7.
Simpler contracting and wider calls mean that bid writers need to be at the top of their game. Small businesses and new entrants should consider forming partnerships with established players to build their track record, and don’t forget management and exploitation. Combine all this with an excellent idea, and your chances will be as good as ever.
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David Talbot (david@dkt-consulting.com) is a specialist in EU research funding and management. He has served as an evaluator and rapporteur in Framework 7 and Horizon 2020.
This article also appeared in Research Europe