Media – statements

 

The campaign in media

University World News, 10 October:
Research stakeholders fight for future of EU research

«Academics and political stakeholders have joined forces to fight plans to cut the European Union’s research and innovation budgets. Instead, they are calling for a funding boost to programmes like Horizon Europe, which they claim will make the continent more competitive.»

Uncertainty looms over Framework Programme 10, as EU debates it structure
«With circulating rumours about the future of the next Framework Programme raising concerns in the European research and innovation community, German MEP Christian Ehler says its structure will be decided in the coming weeks.» Science Business reports from the discussions at our event Invest in the Future.

Times Higher Education, 2 October: 
«Europe will ‚fail‘ without increased research budget, MEP warns»

Research Professional News, 13 September:
EU adviser Enrioco Letta to speak at R&I funding campaign event
«Campaigners are hosting event to push for more EU investment in research and innovation
Enrico Letta, the former prime minister of Italy who published a major report on EU competitiveness earlier this year, has been announced as the keynote speaker at an event that will push for increased EU research and innovation funding.»

Science Business, 18 July:
Von der Leyen vows to increase EU research spending in new term
!As Ursula von der Leyen is re-elected as president of the European Commission, she promises to expand the ERC and the EIC.
(…M)eanwhile MEPs and the research community have been calling for the Horizon Europe budget to be doubled to €200 billion in the next framework programme, as member states continue to show no signs of spending 3% of GDP on R&D, targets which were proposed back in 2003.»

Science Business, 27 June:
Member states call for a greater role in shaping FP10
“While we did not expect a specific budget figure in the opinion, it is disappointing that the member states representing research and innovation ministries remained silent. Without their advocacy for a larger budget, it is unlikely that finance ministers and prime ministers in some countries will even consider increasing their contributions to the EU research and innovation budget,” Kozirog told Science|Business.

For Mattias Björnmalm, secretary general of CESAER, an association of science and technology universities, the lack of references to funding is a “significant missed opportunity.”

“It’s urgently clear that we must achieve the 3% GDP target for research and innovation across all member states, and that this must include a 1.25% public effort target,” he told Science|Business. “This is vitally important to ensure that the framework programme is not seen as a replacement for national investments, which is currently the case.”

Research Professional News, 5 June:
Research Matters campaign renews push for more R&I funding

News Tank Academic:
European elections: «Discussions around collaboration must develop positively» (M.Björnmalm, Cesaer)

Research Professional News, 23 May:
Campaign for more R&I investment ‘could lead to step change in allocated resources’ (€)

Science Business, 15 May:
EU research lobbies team up to ask for R&D budget boost

Nature, 14 May:
mentioned the campaign launch in the article:
A DARPA-like agency could boost EU innovation — but cannot come at the expense of existing schemes

Research Professional News, 13 May: 
Campaign aims to double budget of EU R&I programme

 

Many organisations, politicians and leaders have written statements in support for increased funding for research and innovation.
Here is a collection of statements, op-eds and news articles:

European Commission, 18 July 2024:
von der Leyen: Putting research and innovation at the heart of our economy
President Ursula von der Leyen, who was elected for a second mandate, presented to the European Parliament her Political Guidelines for the next European Commission 2024-2029. Some of the statements in the chapter «Putting research and innovation at the heart of our economy» reads:

«Europe’s competitiveness – and its position in the race to a clean and digital economy – will depend on starting a new age of invention and ingenuity. This requires putting research and innovation, science and technology, at the centre of our economy. We will increase our research spending to focus more on strategic priorities, on groundbreaking fundamental research and disruptive innovation, and on scientific excellence.

To do this, we will expand the European Research Council and the European
Innovation Council.

Europe must also be at the cutting edge between emerging science, tech and industry, the nexus that will make this tech revolution faster and more transformative.»

Make EU research and innovation a «collective priority», Draghi says
Former Italian prime minister calls for more support for fundamental research ahead of the release of landmark report on EU competitiveness
Science Business, 18 June

Position paper on FP10 by ERT – European Roundtable of Industry
ERT’s latest position paper stresses the need for an adequate FP10 budget in the order of €200 billion and underlines the importance of overall continuity, building on an improved version of Horizon Europe.

Key recommendations by ERT include: «ERT and Europe’s wider scientific community° call for FP10 to be allocated at least €200 billion, more than doubling the budget of current Horizon Europe programme. This level of funding will help position Europe better in the face fierce competition with its global peers.»
ERT, 19 July

Position paper on FP10 by YERUN
YERUN states that: “FP10 must have a focus on facilitating high-quality research, both in terms of adequate funding as in the shaping of adequate framework conditions. The budget of FP10 should mirror its ambitions and be above €200 billion.” YERUN, 10 April 

Position paper on FP10 by The Guild
Among the principles in The Guild’s position paper is:
«Ensure an ambitious and stable budget. The Guild reiterates its calls for a budget of at least 200 billion euro and ringfencing it to avoid that short-term policy goals result in sudden shifts in budget allocations.»
The Guild, 15 May 2024

European scientists call for 3% of GDP to be devoted to research
With the European elections approaching, scientists from across the European Union are unitiing for the first time to call for increase science funding from their canditdates. «It is essential to preserve the collaborative, open and international nature of scientific work, said the 27 EU science academies in a statement presented last week in Brussels, Belgium. Euronews, 13 May 2024.

EU should spend more on Horizon Europe, Macron says
In a searing speech at the Sorbonne University, the French president said the EU needs to invest a lot more money in research and innovation.
Science Business, 25 April 2024

Statement by the ERC Scientific Council on the next EU framework programme for research and innovation (FP10)
«…double the spending spending for research and innovation in the next Multiannual Financial Framework.»  European Research Council, 25 January 2024

‘National leaders set up €2.1bn cut to Horizon Europe’, a quote from LERU Secretary-General Kurt Deketelaere: “The raid on Horizon Europe’s funding continues: 2.1 billion euro down the drain. Incredible. At a moment that the H2020 evaluation showed the absolute lack of funding for R&I. And at a moment when the EU strategic autonomy agenda needs more R&I funding.” Research Professional, February 2024

‘Unusual’ Belgian EU presidency charms research world with its popular priorities’, a quote from LERU Secretary-General Kurt Deketelaere: Belgium’s industry is strongly represented in all these areas [health, digitisation, food and green technology], according to Deketelaere, who pointed to the country’s strengths in agriculture and pharmaceuticals, as well as its companies that have a “key role” in microchips. Increased money is needed to bring about increased EU independence, though, he stressed, adding: “We haven’t seen anything of those investments yet.” Research Professional, January 2024

EU-LIFE calls for an ambitious and realistic vision for FP10
The EU-LIFE alliance of leading life science research institutes in Europe calls for an ambitious and yet realistic vision for FP10:

Position paper on FP10  by CESAER:

…»We call on the EU institutions to ensure stable conditions for FP10 and research & innovation
in Europe by: 

➢ allocating at least €200 billion to FP10; 

➢ swiftly enacting the 3% GDP target to research & innovation agreed by the
European Council in Barcelona on 15 and 16 March 2002 (“to be achieved by 2010”,
but still far from achieved), reiterated by the European Commission in 2020 and by
the European Council in Brussels on 23 March 2023; 

➢ endorsing and enacting the 1.25% GDP public effort target to be achieved by
member states by 2030 in an EU coordinated manner, as proposed by the European
Commission in 2020 in its communication ‘A new ERA for Research and Innovation’; 

➢ creating an annual review mechanism of current performance vis-a-vis the 3%
and the 1.25% targets at the Economic and Financial Affairs configuration of the
Council of the EU (ECOFIN) and the European Council, including annual reporting for
all member states in terms of:
○ being on-track to achieve or exceed the targets by 2030; or
○ needing to improve their trajectory to achieve the targets by 2030. 

➢ ring-fence the part of the EU budget allocated to research & innovation to make it
more difficult to reallocate and to ensure more stability;

➢ ensure any new priorities can only be added to the European framework
programme for research and innovation programme if accompanied by the
corresponding new budget»

CESAER, December, 2023