EU would ‘regret’ Horizon Europe budget cuts ‘for years’

Proposed cuts to the next European Union (EU) budget which would see funding for Horizon Europe slashed by €7 billion (£6 billion) will damage Europe’s competitiveness and innovation ambitions, leading university groups have warned.

Under the plan put forward by the Cypriot presidency of the Council of the EU, funding for Horizon Europe, the EU's next seven-year research framework, would be cut by nearly 4 per cent to €167.9 billion.

Funding for the European Competitiveness Fund and Erasmus+ would be reduced to €224.8 billion and €39.1 billion, respectively.

The European Commission has proposed €175 billion for Horizon Europe, €40.8 billion for Erasmus+ and €234.3 billion for the European Competitiveness Fund. Leading university groups have long advocated for €200 billion to be allocated to Horizon Europe. 

The Cypriot presidency’s proposal would see the overall EU budget shrink by 2 per cent compared with the €2 trillion proposed last year. The compromise is known as a “negotiating box”.

While the overall EU budget would fall by 2 per cent, Horizon Europe and the ECF face a steeper 4 per cent cut under the proposal.

Kurt Deketelaere, the secretary general of the League of European Research Universities (Leru), called it “an astonishing act of political incoherence”.

“Europe cannot proclaim competitiveness as its top priority while imposing the deepest cuts on the very programmes that generate competitiveness,” he said in a statement.

“Cutting Horizon Europe by €7 billion compared with the commission proposal and by more than €30 billion compared with the widely supported €200 billion target is a strategic error that Europe will regret for years.”

Kamila Kozirog, deputy director of research and innovation at the European University Association, told Times Higher Education that any reduction below the commission’s proposed €175 billion was “deeply concerning”. 

“This is particularly worrying in a context where many European countries are simultaneously reducing or stagnating national investment in research and innovation,” she said. “At a time of growing geopolitical competition and increasing expectations regarding Europe’s competitiveness and resilience, reducing investment at EU level sends the wrong signal.”

She added that given inflation and significantly higher research costs across Europe, even the commission’s original proposal would not have translated into a proportional increase in research activity.

“A budget below the commission proposal risks further limiting support for highly competitive and successful parts of the programme, including collaborative research, the ERC, MSCA [Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions] and early-stage innovation,” she said.

Jan Palmowski from The Guild of European Research-Intensive Universities told THE that he was concerned on two counts.

“I am concerned about the overall cut because we face the same challenges as a union, and these can only be addressed with an effective, ambitious budget,” he said. “But, second, it is completely unclear to me why, when the overall cut proposed to the MFF is 1.9 per cent, Horizon Europe is cut by more than twice that amount, at 3.9 per cent.”

He added that a key reason the US leads in innovation and future technologies is its significant investment, not just through the private sector, but also through its research-performing organisations and funding agencies.

“The budget for Horizon Europe proposed by the commission was already well below the figure demanded by Mario Draghi in his widely respected report as essential for Europe’s global competitiveness,” Palmowski said. “If Europe wants to catch up, it cannot do it with even less for [research and innovation].”

Mattias Björnmalm, secretary general of Cesaer, an organisation that represents universities of science and technology, said the Commission's proposal was “already a difficult compromise”.

“Europe cannot remain at the forefront of global science, technology and innovation while reducing investment in the programmes that underpin its competitiveness,” he said.

“Cesaer calls on European leaders to maintain, at minimum, the European Commission proposal as the floor for negotiations, while working towards €200 billion for FP10 and €60 billion for Erasmus+.”

seher.asaf@timeshighereducation.com