2019 will be crunch time for Horizon Europe’s budget

Technical aspects of EU research policy remain to be decided—but political deadlines and money will be more significant still, says Daniel Spichtinger.

So far, negotiations on Horizon Europe—the next Framework programme for research and innovation—within and between the European Parliament and national ministers in the Council of the EU have focused on three issues.

First is the research and innovation gap between poorer and richer member states and whether closing this should be a focus of the new programme. MEPs have watered down proposals along these lines made by Dan Nica, one of the Parliament’s rapporteurs for Horizon Europe. But there is still concern that the programme’s ability to prioritise excellent research could suffer if geography starts to influence funding decisions.