This week: €14m for agricultural research, Ordinance Survey archive launches and student union welcomes legislation

In depth: Ireland’s new competitive research funding agency, Taighde Éireann, will launch on 1 August, initially led by interim chief executive Celine Fitzgerald, according to the Irish government. The announcement follows confirmation of Philip Nolan being removed from the role.

Full story: Research Ireland launch date and interim head announced

Also this week from Research Professional News

Early career researcher projects in Ireland receive €14.6m—Research selected for investment will address both “challenges and opportunities”

Here is the rest of the Ireland news this week…

Agricultural research centre gets €14m

University College Dublin has announced a major investment in new agricultural research and education facilities at UCD Lyons Farm. UCD is providing €8 million, with FBD Holdings and FBD Trust CLG pledging a philanthropic contribution of €6m in support of the facility, bringing the combined investment in UCD Lyons Farm to €14m. Construction of the new centre is due to commence in 2025. 

Ordnance Survey archive launched

A new digital archive gathering historic Ordnance Survey maps, memoirs, name-books and letters in one archive so that researchers and members of the public can easily access the material has been announced. A Digital Archive of Ireland’s Ordnance Survey is a new digital resource developed as part of collaborative research project ‘OS200: Digitally Remapping Ireland’s Ordnance Survey Heritage’, which has been funded by the Irish Research Council and the Arts and Humanities Research Council as part of a cross-border collaboration.

Student union welcomes new legislation

New legislation to stop student accommodation providers from offering only 51-week leases, which was recently passed through the Oireachtas, has been welcomed by the Union of Students in Ireland (USI). USI had brought the issue to the attention of the Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science in January, after several students informed the union they were being offered only 51-week leases instead of the usual term-time leases for the next academic year.

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Research selected for investment will address both “challenges and opportunities”

A total of €14.6 million in funding for 25 projects to support early career researchers has been announced under a collaborative initiative between Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) and the Irish Research Council (IRC) to encourage a cohesive research ecosystem in Ireland.

“This funding will help facilitate a defined journey from post-doctoral research to independent research,” said minister for research Patrick O’Donovan. “Bridging this gap is a challenging but critical milestone, and the research selected for investment will address key challenges and opportunities, ranging from new therapies for Parkinson’s to the development of sustainable supercapacitors.”

The awards are aimed at enabling postdoctoral researchers to develop their career pathway and transition to become independent research leaders. The funding, covering a four-year period, will also provide additional support for a postgraduate student who will be primarily supervised by the awardee.

Commenting on the awards, Ruth Freeman, director of Science for Society at SFI, said the foundation is delighted to work in partnership with colleagues at the IRC to deliver the SFI-IRC Pathway Programme. 

“This provides targeted support to early career researchers who will use the funding to pursue independent research at the frontiers of knowledge,” said Freeman. “Investment in these projects will generate novel discoveries and insights across diverse research topics—from environmental sustainability to disease treatment and prevention, to wireless network security.”

The 25 research projects will be funded through 13 research bodies.

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New competitive funding agency represents “step-change in how research is funded”, says research minister

Ireland’s new competitive research funding agency, Taighde Éireann, will launch on 1 August, initially led by interim chief executive Celine Fitzgerald, according to the Irish government. The announcement follows confirmation of Philip Nolan being removed from the role.

The new agency will combine the activities and functions of the Irish Research Council (IRC) and Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) and will capitalise on the recognised strengths of these two agencies in driving world-class research and innovation in Ireland.

The establishment of Taighde Éireann (Research Ireland) is also the keystone of Impact 2030: Ireland’s Research and Innovation Strategy, and the new agency will be central to realising the ambitions set out in the strategy.

‘Vital support’

“The establishment of our new research agency represents a step-change in how research and innovation will be funded, maximising the impact of national competitive research and innovation funding,” said minister for research Patrick O’Donovan.

“This new agency will be a vital support in building the successful future of research and innovation in Ireland, engaging national challenges like the green and digital transitions, and boosting our international standing as research innovators in emerging fields, and the opportunities ahead.”

According to the government, the establishment of Taighde Éireann as the new research and innovation funding agency is set against an ambitious programme of reform in the tertiary sector. This comprises the establishment of the Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science itself, including the development of a unified tertiary system, its remit for the national research and innovation system, and other key policy developments.

An ongoing programme of stakeholder consultation has been taking place since the development of Impact 2030: Ireland’s Research and Innovation Strategy, and has been integral to the development of the planning for the new agency. 

Praise for interim leader

The government also announced the roles of interim chief executive Celine Fitzgerald and board chairperson Michael Brogan.

“The CEO role will be a temporary appointment, pending the recruitment of a new CEO on a permanent basis,” said minister O’Donovan. “Ms Fitzgerald has an outstanding track record of leadership in both the public and private sectors, and I am confident that she is ideally equipped to lead Taighde Éireann into its first months in operation.”

“In addition, Michael Horgan, chairperson of the new agency’s board, will bring significant governance and leadership experience to drive the new agency forward, achieving its strategic goals and enabling Taighde Éireann to fulfil the ambitions set out in Impact 2030.”

The minister also assured there will be no interruption to ongoing services and funding programmes while the new agency is being set up, for anyone who is currently participating in IRC and SFI Programmes. 

“There are positive changes ahead,” O’Donovan said, “and they’ll be implemented in a carefully planned way, so that our researchers can be confident in this new agency and focus on the important work at hand.”

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Commission identifies triumphs and challenges in Horizon Europe backing for small and medium-sized firms

The European Innovation Council, whose focus includes supporting smaller companies use breakthrough technologies, has surpassed its goal of having at least 70 per cent of its resources going to small and medium-sized enterprises, according to a report by the European Commission.

A European Commission report on the participation of SMEs in the EU’s current research and innovation programme, Horizon Europe, since 2021 finds that the European Innovation Council allocated more than 74 per cent of its resources to SMEs.

The European Innovation Council is the EU’s flagship funder for the development of breakthrough technologies, also prioritising their commercialisation by SMEs.

SMEs have received 20 per cent of all Horizon Europe funding awarded so far, amounting to €6.6 billion for 7,474 companies. According to the report “SMEs bring to projects at least 38 cents for every euro in EU funds they receive”.

Just over a third of Horizon Europe project participants are identified as SMEs—a decrease from the previous funding programme, Horizon 2020, where they made up 41 per cent. The report states that this is in fact due to the discontinuation of an SME tool in favour of the EIC accelerator.

The application success rates for SMEs under Horizon Europe is 19 per cent, up from 12 per cent under Horizon 2020, and on average companies receive larger amounts of funding, up by more than a third. EIC accelerator grants can be worth up to €15m including equity.

Challenges

The EIC “does not add as many new participants to Horizon Europe” as its predecessor, says the report, adding that only 70 per cent of funded SMEs are first-timers compared with over 90 per cent under Horizon 2020.

Furthermore, newcomer companies are less likely to participate in more than one or two Horizon Europe projects and “have a low degree of attachment to the framework programme” compared to repeat awardees.

The report says that “obviously, the largest EU economies have more Horizon Europe SME participants”, but a whopping 62 per cent of funding is awarded to 12 member states “that are considered high-performing in R&I” such as Germany, Spain Italy and France. Widening countries that are identified as lagging in R&I received only 18 per cent.

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European industry leaders want next EU R&I programme to include dual-use technology and “financial firepower”

A group of European industry leaders have called for a greater commitment to research and innovation in the EU’s next research framework programme, including allowing dual-use defence research.

Framework programme 10 will succeed the current Horizon Europe, which is worth €93.5 billion for 2021-2027.

The European Round Table for Technology (ERT), which brings together chief executives and chairs from 60 of Europe’s largest industrial and technology companies, released a report that called for EU decision-makers to tear down “the artificial ‘fences’ that exclude ‘dual-use’ projects—and correct a major weakness of Horizon Europe” in FP10.

Call to prioritise defence research

The inclusion of dual-use technology should focus on “drawing the line only between innovation for specifically military applications and ‘everything else’”, saying that research for defence encompasses fields as disparate as aviation, artificial intelligence, chemicals, energy and health, says the report.

Military-specific R&D should still be excluded due to lack of security capacities within FP10, it adds.

The report urges prioritising defence research in Europe, saying that “current defence technology will become obsolete and ineffective sooner rather later” due to global competition.

Horizon Europe has already lost some funding to other causes such as defence, prompting worries that defence research could dilute the focus of FP10.

Competition

The report also challenges the EU to follow through on its recent focus on competitiveness with “financial firepower and pragmatic policy to mobilise human capital in order to master and drive forward key technologies”.

The ERT advocates for the EU to more than double the Horizon Europe budget to €200bn under FP10 and for member states to prioritise investment in R&I as well.

The report argues that Horizon Europe is a“success”, but if it “has one dark chapter, it is the experience of how opportunities are lost due to tight national purse strings”. So far, due to budget shortages, Horizon Europe has been able to fund only around a third of the high-quality proposals it has received.

The ERT said that “systemically low chances for success lead to frustration and make Europe a less attractive place to study and pursue academic careers when compared to more lavishly funding (and competing) world regions”, letting China and the US take the lead in R&I.

Chair of the ERT’s Committee for Competitiveness and Innovation and chief executive of Syensqo, Ilham Kadri, said: “FP10 is a vital opportunity to further boost research and to scale-up innovation potential by adding elements that are still missing—to help the EU make that leap forward in emerging technologies".

The ERT also calls for technologies that are closer to being market ready to be eligible to apply for some FP10 funding.

Funding tools

The report emphasises that FP10 should build on successes of Horizon Europe, such as the “very powerful” European Research Council, which has proven vital in maintaining world-class science and thus “rather than being disrupted, it should be made even stronger”.

The same applies to the European Innovation Council, which supports scaling up technology and funds deep tech startups.

Considering the success of both these instruments, the ERT argues that the final pillar of Horizon, focused on research to tackle global challenges, should have an Industrial Competitiveness Advisory Council that would set a clear and strategic course.

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This week: gene therapy funding, equality in gaming and economic growth for North Jutland

In depth: The rector and vice-rector of the University of Oslo have defended their institution’s academic cooperation with China, following the arrest of a Norwegian citizen accused of spying for China.

Full story: University of Oslo defends collaboration with China

Also this week from Research Professional News

Plan to alleviate administrative tedium enters first stage—Government’s policy change is designed to give Swedish universities more time for research

Here is the rest of the Nordic news this week…

Health tech researcher receives Lundbeck Foundation grant  

Ditte Jæhger, a researcher at the Technical University of Denmark, has received a grant of €670,000 from the Lundbeck Foundation, the university has announced. Thanks to this support, Jæhger will spend the next 18 months researching gene therapy for knee osteoarthritis. 

Tampere University reports good progress in game research

A project in Finland that is researching problems of equality and inclusion within the computer gaming world has completed its first stage. During the spring of 2024, stakeholder organisations such as Female Gaming Finland helped to identify the main problems in gaming culture. The project will now move on to workshopping solutions, according to an announcement from Tampere University. 

Aalborg University brings growth to North Jutland

As Aalborg University enjoys the 50th anniversary since it was founded, the university has said it brings growth and economic opportunity to the North Jutland region of Denmark, where it is located. Aalborg University said it generates a benefit of €1.2 billion per year for North Jutland, which equates to 4.9 per cent of the region’s GDP.

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Government’s policy change is designed to give Swedish universities more time for research

Swedish universities burdened with administrative tasks will now have more time to dedicate to research, following government plans that aim to alleviate administrative load.

The first stage of these reforms involves a review of current administrative burdens that universities face. Universities and colleges will be asked to indicate which administrative tasks are particularly onerous, and to suggest measures to improve efficiency. The plan was announced on 22 July and the results of this initial stage are expected in September 2025.

Universities in Sweden already have more independence from the government than other public bodies, both in terms of how they operate and how they spend money, but they still they have administrative obligations to fulfil.

The Swedish Agency for Public Management has been tasked with proposing measures to reduce these burdens. “Researchers and university [lecturers] must focus on conducting world-class research and building outstanding research environments. They should not spend too much time on burdensome reporting,” said education minister Mats Persson.

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Rector and vice-rector argue against cutting ties with Chinese researchers

The rector and vice-rector of the University of Oslo have defended their institution’s academic cooperation with China, following the arrest of a Norwegian citizen accused of spying for China. 

The suspect, who denies any wrongdoing, was apprehended at Oslo airport after returning from China. The case has sparked a debate within Norway about the extent to which the country should cooperate and collaborate with China across a number of areas, including research and higher education.

“Caution is required, but panicked reactions demanding that all cooperation with China be broken and that scare Norwegian students from travelling to China are counterproductive,” wrote rector Svein Stølen and vice-rector Mette Halskov Hansen in an online statement.

‘End to research collaborations’

The statement from the University of Oslo goes against arguments from the Progress Party, which has called for an end to research collaborations between Norway and countries it says put Norwegian national security at risk. “It is difficult to understand why it is so important for the government to allow Russian and Chinese researchers access to our technology. The understanding of security seems to be absent. We invite espionage by not limiting who we work with,” reads a statement from the right-wing and populist party.

The Norwegian domestic intelligence service, PST, has classed China as an increasing and significant intelligence threat to Norway in its most recent assessment. In an interview with Norwegian news outlet Verdens Gang, the leader of PST’s counterintelligence department, Kristian Takvam Kindt, said Norwegian students going to China are at risk of being recruited as spies.

‘China on equal footing with US’

But the University of Oslo has strongly defended its research collaborations with China. Stølen and Hansen argued that China is on equal footing with the United States in terms of its significance as a research nation. Therefore, Norway simply cannot afford to not cooperate with China.

“It is about more than academia. With a population of 1.4 billion and very rapid economic development, China is central to solving many of the global societal challenges—not least climate problems,” they wrote. “It is absurd and downright dangerous to imagine that we will not have any research collaborations with Chinese institutions and researchers.”

Stølen and Hansen did praise the PST for keeping a close eye on China’s activities, but they said universities should be trusted to assess the risks of cooperation with Chinese partners for themselves.

“We must be selective and not uniformly dismiss all research when we urge caution because of the real threat that some forms of knowledge transfer could be used militarily or industrially in China. Instead, we must make concrete risk assessments of the collaboration we choose to develop.”

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German plan for “mega deal” covering Erasmus+ and visa costs welcomed by student unions

The German government has proposed a broad post-Brexit alternative deal between the UK and EU that would include student mobility arrangements and ameliorate high visa costs, according to reports, bringing a warm welcome from German student union representatives.

An article published today by Politico says that as the EU discusses a new post-Brexit security deal with the UK’s Labour government, the German government has proposed broadening that into a much wider “mega deal” encompassing areas ranging from agriculture to the EU student mobility funding programme Erasmus+.

Germany’s ambassador to the UK, Miguel Berger, told Politico that the proposed deal “would include the Erasmus programme, school trips, youth exchanges, and the question of visa costs, which are more than 10 times higher to come to the UK than the other way around”.

He said he would like to see “progress” on “day-to-day mobility, especially for young people”.

Erasmus+ has an estimated budget of €26.2 billion for 2021-27 and supported more than 30,000 exchange programmes in 2023. It facilitates the EU’s goal of reaching 20 per cent student mobility. 

Warm welcome

Paul Klär, international officer at Germany’s Free Association of Student Unions (FZS), said it “would welcome a re-association of the UK with Erasmus+ immensely”.

Klär said that “dissociation from Erasmus+ and a simultaneous drastic increase in tuition fees for foreign students has made the UK inaccessible… for German students”.

The FZS, alongside the European Students’ Union, has repeatedly called for the UK to rejoin Erasmus+.

Klär said the move would bring benefits “for students both in the UK and in all the current Erasmus+-countries, including Germany”, and foster “intercultural understanding on campuses”.

Previous mobility proposals by the EU have been met coolly by the UK’s new Labour government, which is adamant it will not reintroduce freedom of movement in any form. But Germany and the EU stress their ideas focus on short-term visas.

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Minimum salaries will increase by 6 per cent in 2026 to ‘maintain attractiveness’ of PhDs

Switzerland’s main research funder has decided to raise minimum PhD salaries by 6 per cent from 2026 onwards.

The Swiss National Science Foundation announced on 24 July that its board and representatives from the higher education sector have agreed to the first salary adjustment for doctoral students since 2014.

Thomas Werder, a member of the SNSF executive management team and head of research funding, said in the statement that “this salary increase is essential if we are to maintain the attractiveness of the doctorate and of Switzerland as a research centre”.

The SNSF allocated 52 million Swiss francs (€52 million) in its 2025-28 financial programme to be used in raising doctoral salaries. Minimum doctoral salaries will increase from 47,040 to 50,000 Swiss francs per year.

The raise will take effect from January 2026 to give institutions time to plan their budgets and “guarantee equal treatment for their doctoral students”, according to SNSF.

The foundation has already adjusted the upper limit of doctoral salaries, to 55,000 Swiss francs per annum, in both 2023 and 2024 to adjust for inflation.

The SNSF is the largest research funder in Switzerland and since 2021 has been providing a domestic alternative to the EU’s research programme, Horizon Europe, until accession negotiations recently re-started.

It supports more than 6,000 PhD students and recruits approximately 2,000 new doctoral candidates each year.

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New faces join organisation responsible for directing EU innovation policy

Five new members have been appointed to the board of the European Institute of Innovation and Technology, EIT.

The board is responsible for guiding the strategic direction of the EIT, the independent EU body charged with strengthening the bloc’s capacity to innovate. It is also responsible for selecting and monitoring the performance of the nine Knowledge and Innovation Communities (KICs) created since the EIT was established in 2008.

The new members are: Anne Borg, former director of the Norwegian University of Science and Technology; Dariusz Jemielniak, vice-president of the Polish Academy of Sciences; Kyriacos Kokkinos, Cyprus’s former minister for research, innovation and digital policy; Anna Lindén, vice-chair of the board of Åbo Akademi University in Finland; and Michel Mariton, vice-president for economic development at Paris-Sarclay University in France.

EIT is based in Budapest, Hungary. Its 15 board members have backgrounds in business, education and research. They are appointed by the European Commission and serve a non-renewable four-year term.

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Government-commissioned analysis calls for policies to reduce dropout rates and tackle skills shortages

The Netherlands’ higher education system needs to do more to ensure that students’ choices work better for them and for the nation’s economy, according to a report commissioned by the Ministry of Education and Science.

While noting that Dutch universities perform well internationally, the report states that high dropout rates and course switching, contributing to poor educational performance, show that too many students are not choosing the best institution or course for them.

Dropout rates are 8 per cent for university students, and 15 per cent for those taking courses in higher professional education. For students switching courses, the figures are 17 per and 19 per cent, respectively.

The report makes several policy proposals aimed at reducing these figures. One key recommendation is to improve study information and guidance, including mandatory orientation programmes, to help students make better choices and increase their chance of completing their studies successfully. It also suggests shared first-year courses between vocational and research-intensive institutions, to give students experience of both options.

The report also advocates the introduction of a flexible learning credit system, similar to that used by the Belgian region of Flanders. This system would give students more control over their educational careers and encourage institutions to focus more on increasing completion rates and reducing course durations.

Labour shortages

Students are also not on the right courses to meet the demands of the Netherlands’ labour market, the report concludes. It calls for policies to direct students to sectors with skills shortages, such as engineering, healthcare and education—although, given the difficulty of predicting future labour needs, recommends that interventions should be small-scale.

One way to address shortages, it says, would be to increase the number of international students remaining in the Netherlands to work after their studies. This number has almost doubled over the past decade, but should be higher still, the report says.

Another challenge identified concerns the regional spread of students. Demographic trends will lead to student numbers levelling off or decreasing, potentially leaving those in underserved areas unable to find suitable programmes, and making some regions inaccessible to higher education. The report calls for regional and sectoral policies to shore up accessibility and promote cooperation between institutions.

Funding reforms

The report explores a number of different options for reforming the funding regime to promote the changes it advocates. These include changing the relationship between fees, funding and the duration of study, so as to encourage students to complete their courses more quickly, and increasing the cost of master’s degrees to encourage graduates to enter the workforce.

In total, it estimates that its policy package would save between 10 and 20 per cent of the total annual higher education budget, currently standing at €11.7 billion. Implementing such reforms would be “a major task, requiring sharp choices”, it notes.

The report, ‘Effective Higher Education: Talent in the right place’, is an Interdepartmental Policy Study, produced by officials from various ministries, based on research and interviews with experts. It was published on 17 July.

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Prior winners in Dutch National Growth Fund, which is being phased out, unlock extra support

The Dutch cabinet has approved funding of around half a billion euros for five projects supported by the National Growth Fund, following the recommendations of the fund’s advisory committee.

The five ongoing projects will receive €466.2 million, with a further €51.1m of conditional funding available. These are previously approved projects that needed to further substantiate their proposals to qualify for the next part of their funding.

In the new coalition government’s outline agreement, the parties decided to phase out the National Growth Fund while honouring the agreements of the first three rounds, including these projects.

Two of the projects focus on artificial intelligence. The National Education Lab AI will get €11.9m and a further award of €51.1m conditional on submitting a supplementary plan. AiNed, which aims to increase investment in and application of AI in a human-centred way, will get €28.5m for funding a fellowship programme called Elsa Labs.

Also in the tech sector, Quantum Delta NL will receive €272.8m as it aims to reinforce the Netherlands’ strong position in quantum research and convert this into economic benefits.

Ships and plastics

Another project, the Maritime Master Plan, aims to develop more reliable, competitive and sustainable ships. The scheme will receive €110m in total for initiatives including the development of around 40 demonstration ships by public-private consortia.

Finally, Circular Plastics NL will receive €43m for research into reducing greenhouse gas emissions and pollution by making the plastics value chain fully circular.

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This week: funding for rising stars, investment in lifelong learning and research on boosting innovation

In depth: A government-commissioned analysis argues that university courses and funding models should be reformed to reduce dropouts and course switching, also saving 10-20 per cent of the university budget in the process.  

Full story: Too many Dutch students are on the wrong course, says report

Also this week from Research Professional News

Cabinet approves €500m for tech and sustainability projects—Prior winners in Dutch National Growth Fund, which is being phased out, unlock extra support

Here is the rest of the Dutch news this week…

Support for early career researchers

The Dutch Research Council (NWO) has awarded grants of up to €320,000 to 174 researchers working across the full range of academic disciplines. The Veni awards are for researchers who have recently completed their PhD, enabling them to develop their own research programmes over the next three years. Of the grants, 53 went to researchers working in the natural sciences, 69 to social sciences and humanities, 25 to applied and technical sciences and 27 to health research. The 174 winners were chosen from 1,308 applicants.

Lifelong learning projects awarded €40m

The Dutch cabinet has allocated €40 million to 36 projects aimed at boosting skills in green energy and sustainable raw materials. The money comes under the second application round of the LLO Catalyst programme for lifelong learning, part of the National Growth Fund, and will support regional collaborations between businesses and educational institutions aimed at retraining and upskilling professionals. Education and science minister Eppo Bruins said that “with this investment, the education sector will be better connected to the regional labour market” and the “transition to clean energy and more efficient use of raw materials will be accelerated”.

Innovative approaches to innovation

Research into how best to use innovation to build sustainable prosperity has won support from the Dutch Research Council’s Knowledge and Innovation Covenant programme. The project will be led by Delft University of Technology, with partners in research, government and industry in the Netherlands, Norway and Canada. It aims to bring different groups together to collaborate on the design, governance and financing of new products and processes.

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EUA report finds university policies shift steadily even while facing global health and geopolitical crises

Global crises are driving steady change in universities, according to a European University Association report based on a major international survey, which highlights flexible learning and the purpose of internationalisation as key areas where institutions and policymakers should focus.

The EUA released Trends 2024, the latest in its long-running series, on 25 July, based on a survey of 480 higher education institutions in 46 European higher education systems, analysed in depth for trends across Europe since the last report was published in 2018.

The survey shows that institutions are “evolving rather than radically transforming, with relatively common horizons and resulting in the adoption of concrete policies and measures”.

Key areas

The report sets out three key areas for policymakers and universities to focus on: the need to avoid “mission overload”; to have “urgent and proper reflection on the education offer” and consider “what flexible learning would mean and entail for each institution”, plus “the role of HEIs in lifelong learning”; and to consider the “state and purpose(s) of internationalisation in the higher education sector”.

The report comes at the end of a working cycle of the 25-year-old Bologna Process, the initiative to harmonise degree recognition and quality assurance across the European Higher Education Area.

Amanda Crowfoot, secretary-general of the EUA, writes in the introduction to the report that “while many key commitments of the Bologna Process, such as quality assurance, degree cycles and recognition, remain on the agenda and still require attention, this is also a moment to set priorities for the future”.

Issues that have profoundly affected universities, she adds, include the pandemic, which “challenged existing practices yet at the same time provided invaluable opportunities to mainstream the use of digital tools”, alongside geopolitical challenges such as the war in Ukraine, accompanied by subsequent energy and economic crises in Europe, which “brought to the forefront questions related not only to economic and technological sovereignty but also to integrity, solidarity and inclusiveness”.

However, the report finds that higher education institutions and the EHEA are merely “evolving rather than radically transforming”. It suggests that moving forward, policymakers and institutions should focus more on the central mission of universities to avoid demanding too much with too few resources; re-evaluate their education in accordance with a changing student body and learning environment; and be more strategic around internationalisation.

Degrees

The report highlights that the pandemic resulted in policy changes around teaching practices at most universities in the EU. However, 79 per cent of students still exclusively receive campus-based teaching, although there is now greater diversity in what that looks like, and it often includes more video elements.

There has also been an increase in non-degree education, and microcredentials are seen as a positive addition by 75 per cent of institutions.

However, the report finds that most institutions also identify a lack of framework for establishing microcredentials as a problem.

The EHEA is facilitating better credit mobility between institutions but still faces structural challenges, the findings suggest. The report says “the Bologna Process benchmark of 20 per cent of graduates having a mobility experience is still in the far distance” due to issues such as “lack of funding, the lack of sufficient fellowships in both number and cost coverage, but also the rising costs and the shortages of affordable accommodation”.

The EUA calls for a better implementation of the Bologna Process and stricter adherence to the rules of Erasmus+, the EU’s student exchange programme.

Mobility

The report also finds that while there is a growing demand for staff mobility to be prioritised, there is no systematic approach to the issue.

However, collaboration leading to joint degrees is of high priority for policymakers and for institutions, which “are quite positive regarding joint programmes and degrees, despite the complexity of the matter and the effort it entails for institutions”.

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Lack of access to finance is stifling innovative firms, European Investment Bank says

The EU must invest in firms at the scale-up stage to stay at the forefront of technological change, according to the bloc’s leading financial institution.

A report published on 24 July by the European Investment Bank says the EU needs to remove barriers to investment in order to close the financial gap for firms between starting up and reaching maturity.

Scale-ups have been increasing in Europe and are a vital source of innovation but are often stifled by financial barriers, the EIB report suggests.

“Innovation is Europe’s path to a sustainable and equitable future. Inadequate investment in innovation, coupled with the ageing of mature technologies, threatens to undermine Europe’s competitiveness,” it says.

Removing barriers

The document argues that the financial barriers for scale-ups should be removed and that targeted public investments should be offered. This would “generate a virtuous cycle, redirecting investments from institutional investors to this strategic market segment”.

Ensuring startups have the investment they require is “essential for the EU to maintain its edge in technology and thrive amid the green and digital transitions”, the bank says.  

But it adds: “European innovators grapple with significant constraints when seeking investment, particularly as they transition from startups to growth-stage companies.”

These problems mean that firms often have to seek the necessary finance from institutions outside the EU or even relocate their operations overseas, the EIB points out.

Value of scale-ups

Scale-ups are young firms with high growth potential, according to the report, and can be more productive than the average company while developing into leaders in new technologies.

They often have to raise capital, which makes them vulnerable to cyclical economic downturns and tightening financial conditions.

Europe needs to create more effective capital markets by improving access to the stock and bond markets. But it also needs private equity financing to help close the financial gap, the report says.

The EU is still not investing enough in equity and venture capital, it says, adding that “financing constraints faced by EU scale-ups stem from the shallow and fragmented nature of European capital markets, particularly the venture capital market”.

Venture capital investment in Europe is approximately six times smaller than that of the US, it says.

Public sector action needed

While the EU is attractive for foreign venture capital investors, insufficient domestic savings are channelled into the financing of innovative companies, the bank says.

Its report calls for EU and national policies to be coordinated in a broad strategy for improving European competitiveness. Private investments in innovative firms could also be catalysed by the public sector.

“Regulatory and legal intervention is needed to deepen capital markets, mobilise private institutional investors towards this strategic segment of innovative firms and develop a robust ecosystem,” the report says.

It also points out that the EU has a strong track record of supporting business growth through grants, ‘business angels’, seed capital, venture capital and venture debt. Business angels are experienced high-net-worth individuals who invest in new or growing businesses individually or as part of a syndicate.

The EIB says it has been successful in backing innovative companies and scaling up new technologies. It could play a “catalytic role, contributing to Europe’s global competitiveness”.

Nadia Calviño, the bank’s president, said: “The EIB Group is playing an important role in supporting Europe’s innovation ecosystem. We stand ready to do more, especially in paving the way for a true capital markets union, a key priority to drive sustainable growth and job creation.”

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Springer Nature blames market conditions for closure of Nature Italy

The digital magazine Nature Italy has ceased publication, much to the disappointment of its readers and contributors.

The publication was welcomed as an authoritative new voice in discussions on research and policy from an Italian perspective when it was launched in October 2020. There was no announcement from its publisher, Springer Nature, when the last edition appeared in May, but the company has now confirmed that the suspension is permanent.

The move has surprised many academics. Elena Cattaneo, a pharmacologist at the State University of Milan, told Research Professional News: “I learn only now of the suspension of the publication of Nature Italy…I had welcomed the birth of a branch of the journal dedicated to Italy.”

Loss of sponsors

The online magazine published weekly reports in English and Italian on scientific research and science policy in Italy, with all content available free of charge. The revenue came from a group of private supporters, some of which have not renewed their support.

Manuela Raimondi, a biomedical engineer at the Polytechnic of Milan and president of the Association of Italian ERC grantees, expressed sadness at the magazine’s demise. “I regret that a publication with an interest in keeping the focus on research alive is disappearing. The loss of sponsors is certainly not a sign of attention from the private sector,” she told RPN.

A Springer Nature spokesperson confirmed that the magazine was closed for good: “As a result of local market conditions and consumer demand, Springer Nature had to take the very difficult decision to close Nature Italy. At present there are no plans to reopen it as a research news outlet.

“All content published in the free digital-only journal remains accessible on the journal homepage in perpetuity. We thank our authors, editors, readers, community and sponsors for their support,” the statement said.

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Group representing pharmaceutical industry accepts new rules while highlighting issues still needing clarification

A group representing the European pharmaceutical industry has accepted the final agreement on the European Health Data Space regulation, despite previously expressing “deep concerns” about the progress of the legislation.

The European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations published its position on the EHDS agreement on 24 July. The document says Efpia intends to “work constructively” with EU institutions and member states “to address critical aspects that require further clarification within the implementation phase”.

“Efpia recognises the importance of the EHDS. The pharmaceutical industry wants to take part in the EHDS ecosystem, with the paramount objectives of unlocking the huge potential of health data to improve care and treatment, foster innovation and support the economy,” it says.

Proposed by the European Commission in 2022, the EHDS is intended to give patients more control over their medical data and care and to set out laws for using data in healthcare and research. It was approved by the European Parliament in April and is set to be adopted by the European Council.

Reservations remain

The Efpia paper highlights issues that the group believes still need to be addressed in the regulation. These include clarifying datasets in scope for secondary use, which it says are too “broadly defined”, as well as issues around territorial scope, international data transfers and opt-outs.

In February, Efpia expressed “deep concerns” about the progress of the EHDS, setting out “10 fundamental issues [that] have not been addressed satisfactorily” by legislators. These issues included the need for clearer definitions of key terms including ‘electronic health data’ and ‘data holder’.

The federation, which includes national associations as well as companies, is still concerned that there is no plan for secondary legislation—implementing acts—to provide further clarity on these definitions.

The paper sets out recommendations including creating secondary legislation to address these issues, stressing that it is critical that “data holders…remain involved at all steps of the decision-making process”.

“We are looking forward to collaborating with the European Commission, member states and responsible authorities in order to achieve this,” the paper says.

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This week: research institute’s new supercomputer, funding for applied science, Nature Italy folds

In depth: Italy’s research minister and association of university rectors have traded harsh words over the government’s proposed cuts to funding, prompting the minister to pull out of a meeting to which she was already en route 

Full story: Minister and rectors fall out over university budget plans

Also this week from Research Professional News…

Italian science policy magazine ceases publication—Springer Nature blames market conditions for closure of Nature Italy
 

Here is the rest of the Italian news this week…

Environmentally friendly supercomputer launched

Italy’s national agency for new technologies, energy and sustainable economic development (ENEA) has announced the launch of a new supercomputer, located at its research centre in Portici, near Naples. Named CRESCO7, the computer will be available to research organisations, universities and companies in many fields. The new machine, which can carry out half-a-million-billion mathematical operations per second, or 0.5 petaflops, is less powerful than its 1.4-petaflop predecessor, CRESCO6, inaugurated in 2018. But it will be more sustainable, with the heat produced warming the centre’s rooms and water. It also features significant new software. The computer “will be the starting point for future large-scale installations”, said Francesco Iannone, head of ENEA’s Laboratory of Infrastructures for Scientific and High-Performance Computing. These include a 10-petaflop machine, CRESCO8, scheduled to be commissioned in the autumn, he added.

Major funding call for applied science

The Italian Fund for Applied Science (FISA) has announced a call for proposals worth more than €172 million. The funding will go to projects in industrial R&D submitted by individual principal investigators working in either the public or private sectors. Proposals in six research areas are eligible: advanced manufacturing; advanced materials; life-science technologies; micro and nano electronics, photonics and quantum technologies; artificial intelligence; and security, connectivity and space. They will be judged on their originality and innovativeness, and potential to foster socio-economic and industrial spin-offs. Successful projects will receive between €5 million  and €10 million and last two-to-five years.

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Why you might be writing funding bids with the wrong readers in mind

As Funding Insight eases into its summer break, we spare a thought for all our readers who won’t be able to spend as much time away from a computer screen as they might have liked because they have grant application deadlines looming in the coming months.

To help focus your minds, we republish this reflection from May 2021 on who you will be writing for as you work up your bid. As the article makes plain, you won’t be writing for a panel of fearsome, omniscient mega-minds but rather inquisitive, intelligent but time-limited and pressured researchers (and others), much like you. And that requires a different mindset…

When you’re writing a research grant application, who are you writing for? And who should you be writing for? Considering these questions matters because tailoring your bid to suit the needs of its key audience (peer reviewers and panel members) will raise its chances of getting funded. But before you focus on who you are writing for, you might have to admit that a mixture of education and wishful thinking has led you to write for the wrong people.

You are not writing for teacher 

For most of our time in formal education, we write for an audience of one: for a teacher at school, a tutor at university and external examiners at crunch moments. We would write about a topic that our sole reader knew more about than we did, with the purpose of convincing her to grade our knowledge of one of her specialist areas as highly as possible.

This starts to change through masters or PhD theses and into early career and academic publications and grant proposals. You’re no longer writing for the all-knowing, functionally omniscient reader: the locus of expertise has started to shift. As a grant applicants you are still writing for highly skilled and knowledgeable people, but their expertise is not the same as yours. The chances are that you—not teacher, not reviewer—are now the expert in the topic you are writing about.

To quote Darth Vader as he battles his former mentor Obi-Wan Kenobi: “The circle is now complete. When I left you I was but the learner. Now, I am the master.” Now you are the master, you need to write like the master, not for the master.

You are not writing for your ideal reviewer

Because even if she exists, she’s probably too busy. Or conflicted. Or the funder’s review scheme doesn’t know who she is. Ask anyone who has—like me—served on a funding panel, and you’ll find decisions are taken on each application relatively quicky, especially compared to the time they take to write. There will not be a special one-day conference convened to discuss the merits of your proposal, and the scrutiny it will be subjected to will be less ‘fine-toothed comb’ and more ‘quick onceover with the clippers’ until a broadly defensible result is achieved.

Now we can return to our original question: who are you writing for?

You are writing for busy, best-available-reviewers

Your reviewers are mostly researchers too. And as researchers they’re under much the same pressures you are, only they’ve also got one or a whole bunch of proposals to review. It’s not that different from having a pile of marking to do, only they’re not the expert. They’re an expert, just not on every subject contained in that pile of work. As an applicant, you’d be well advised to make life as easy as possible for them by expressing your ideas as clearly and unambiguously as possible.

But to what end? Now you know your audience a bit better it’s worth considering the effect you want your text to have on them, or in existential terms…

What are you trying to achieve?

In your grant application, you’re trying to achieve three things—explain, inspire and reassure—in order to persuade.

1. Explain

Remember, you’re the master now, you can’t assume the reviewer knows the field as well as you do. So you need to explain what you propose to do: what are your research questions/hypothesis and methods, why are these the right methods, and how does the whole thing hang together as a coherent package? 

I don’t know who first said this, but a really well-written application flatters the reader into thinking she understands it, while a poorly written one beats her over the head with her own ignorance. As a non-academic, I don’t expect to understand how a technical proposal works, but I expect to understand what it’s for.

This is one of the hardest things for researchers new to grant writing to get right. Many drafts I see start at the wrong level of focus—they’ve zoomed in much too closely onto the key details that are most exercising the applicant but lack any kind of broader context or overview and end up functionally incomprehensible. Reviewers won’t recommend funding they can’t understand.

2. Inspire

Many early draft applications I see don’t adequately explain the novelty of what’s proposed, what the contribution of the programme of work will be, nor why it matters. When I ask, applicants will often look confused because to them, it’s obvious. It’s not, because it’s implicit. It needs to be explicit. Don’t leave your busy, best-available-reviewer to puzzle it out for herself.  Don’t overclaim, don’t overhype, but don’t undersell your work either. If you’re unable to clearly articulate the significance, novelty and contribution of your proposal, it’s too soon to apply for funding.

3. Reassure

Don’t submit research applications, submit research plans. You’re asking a funder to take a punt on your proposal ahead of others, so you need to make the funding panel feel confident about that decision. You do this by concisely and efficiently citing the right literature, by having the right research team with appropriate track records, and by producing robust, high-quality responses to the more administrative parts of the form. You can also reassure with your risk management plans, especially your plan Bs for if an experiment doesn’t produce the finding you predict. How might you recalibrate or refocus the project?

4. Persuade

Funding is competitive. There are more good ideas than there is funding for good ideas. It’s not like an A grade at school or a driving licence, or even a PhD, where there is an unlimited number available and where everyone who deserves one can have one. It’s not enough to be good, you need to finish in the top tier to get funding. You need to be more persuasive about the excellence of your proposal than the competition.

You can’t control what other applications will go to the same panel for funding, nor their respective merits. But you can give yourself the best possible chance by making sure your application is pitched at your actual audience, the best-available-reviewer—not the all-knowing teacher, your PhD supervisor or Obi-Wan Kenobi.

Adam Golberg is strategic research development manager (research growth) at the University of Nottingham. He tweets @Cash4Questions and blogs at socialscienceresearchfunding.co.uk.

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Public criticism of government’s proposed cuts prompts harsh words and last-minute meeting cancellation

A public quarrel has shaken the relationship between Italian university rectors and the country’s research minister, Anna Maria Bernini.

The argument centres around a consultation on government proposals to reduce basic university funding (FFO), one of several reforms to research and higher education being planned by Giorgia Meloni’s right-wing government. University funding had been slowly increasing since sharp cuts in 2010.

The draft plan prompted the usually cautious and diplomatic Conference of Italian University Rectors (CRUI) to issue a public statement condemning the proposal. The rectors’ statement was published on 18 July, just as Bernini was travelling to a meeting with the CRUI.

Bernini, pictured above, was said to have become so upset on reading the criticism that she ordered her car back to the ministry, from where she issued her response: “Within minutes of the start of a long-scheduled meeting, unfounded and alarmist figures were being spewed out about alleged cuts to universities,” she was quoted as saying. “This is unacceptable behaviour.”

In jeopardy

The proposed FFO for 2024 is €173 million down on the previous year, from €9.20 billion to €9.03bn. However, the six-page document released by the CRUI argues that when other expenditures are taken into account, such as an extraordinary hiring plan and contractual salary raises, the funding will, in effect, fall by €513 million.

Such a reduction would “risk not only to halt the virtuous evolution of the national university system but to jeopardise the very survival of the Italian public university”, claims the document. Concern was also raised that an entire generation of young female researchers, and researchers generally, will have no prospects.

Rectors asked for the funding’s structure to be simplified, and for government budgets to be set three years in advance. 

They also complained that a greater proportion of funding was earmarked for specific uses, reducing the amount over which universities have discretion, down by 9 per cent compared with 2023.

Coming to the table

Responding to a request from the parliamentary opposition, on 23 July the research ministry said in a statement that “Bernini intends to continue the discussion, to be conducted on an institutional level (and not in the press)”. It went on to say that the minister was “fully prepared to report” but it would “be the Chambers [Chamber of Deputies] that will determine its timing and scheduling. That will be a very useful opportunity to explain, in an institutional setting, both the FFO and all other forms of public funding for universities.”

On 24 July, CRUI issued a press release announcing that its president, Giovanna Iannantuoni, had met with Bernini the previous day. Iannantuoni was quoted as saying: “We laid the groundwork for envisioning an innovative model of public funding for universities—something the universities have been waiting for a long time.”

She also declared the CRUI’s willingness “to work right away so that financial sustainability and autonomy are two firm tracks on which to make the higher education system in Italy grow and move forward safely—a path on which the minister’s full agreement was recorded.”

It is unclear whether Bernini and Iannantuoni also agreed on other critical aspects of the plan, including the budget figures. Iannantuoni declined requests from Research Professional News to comment.

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University head hits out at elimination of regional institutions from flagship French scheme

The results from the first round of a major French government funding call for research programmes in the humanities and social sciences show that assessors are biased in favour of big academic institutions in Paris, the president of Paul Valéry University in Montpellier has claimed.

Paul Valéry University was a member of two of the 21 consortia whose bids were knocked back by the preselection panel for the competition. Seventeen bids have been invited to submit full proposals to the €100 million scheme, with a deadline of 1 October.

Speaking to the news agency AEF Info, Paul Valéry president Anne Fraïsse said that six of France’s eight specialist humanities and social sciences institutions had been eliminated from the competition in the first round, and the two that remained in the running were both based in Paris. Fraïsse said that this revealed a “marked Parisianism” on the part of the preselection panel.

She said: “The results are surprising and reveal bias that is all the more worrying because it is denied by the [research] ministry.”

‘Unscientific approach’

Fraïsse also expressed dismay that the preselection panel was composed of ministry and government officials, with input from scientific experts only “where appropriate”. She said that her university was part of a consortium led by the University of Toulouse Jean-Jaurès that was told it was “too Occitan”—a reference to the region including both Toulouse and Montpellier. Fraïsse said that this was not a legitimate scientific criticism.

In addition to the rejection of bids involving the six regional specialist universities, Fraïsse estimates that 10 of the 17 preselected projects were led by France’s larger institutions, most of which were created as a result of mergers in recent years.

This will “further increase [funding] injustices between universities, which already seem so difficult to overcome”, Fraïsse said.

Earlier criticisms

The scheme is for themed research programmes of a minimum value of €5m. It is overseen by the ANR, France’s national funder.

The scheme was criticised shortly after its launch in March by the science campaign group Qualité de la Science Française for two reasons. First, for its deadline: applicants had barely two months to put bids together, and much of this time would be taken up in managing the bureaucratic arrangements of consortia, QSF said.

Second, QSF berated the imposition of research themes for the call. That so much funding was tied to themes would “restrict the creativity of academics and researchers and curtail their academic freedom”, the group said.

Research Professional News has approached both the Ministry of Higher Education and Research and the ANR for a response to Fraïsse’s comments.

Update (25 July): the ANR has told Research Professional News that it does not comment on the decisions of its selection panels.

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Four organisations seek views on how to strengthen open science

Organisations representing European academic libraries and repositories are seeking input on their future role.

Four groups announced a consultation on 18 July to feed into a “collective vision for the future of repositories in Europe”. They are: Liber, the Association of European Research Libraries; Sparc Europe, a Dutch foundation that advocates for open access; the Confederation of Open Access Repositories, which represents more than 130 members globally; and the non-profit OpenAire, which provides infrastructure services to support open access.

The consultation builds on a strategy released by the four organisations in January 2023, which aimed to “strengthen the European repository network”.

As a first step towards that goal, a survey of 394 repositories in 34 countries was carried out in February and March 2023. This defined repositories as services that “acquire, preserve and provide open access to tens or possibly hundreds of millions of valuable research outputs and represent critical, not-for-profit infrastructure in the European open science landscape”.

Such repositories provide access to materials such as articles that may be paywalled in published journals, research data, theses, conference papers and preprints.

Three challenges

The survey identified three challenges for European repositories: maintaining software platforms; implementing best practices in metadata, preservation and usage statistics; and increasing visibility in the scholarly ecosystem.

The new consultation aims to collect initial information from different stakeholders. This will then be refined further by focus groups, ultimately resulting in a vision that repositories can work towards while tackling the challenges identified by the survey.

The consultation closes at the end of August.

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UK spending watchdog questions Esa value for money as new science secretary emphasises space opportunities

The UK’s spending watchdog has questioned whether the nation gets value for money from its membership of the European Space Agency, a day after science secretary Peter Kyle highlighted the innovation opportunities in the space sector.

In a report commissioned by the UK Space Agency and published on 23 July, the National Audit Office scrutinised the country’s £553 million spend—85 per cent of UKSA funding—on Esa programmes in 2022-23, pointing out that the country received a lower return than France and Germany over most of the past decade.

“The UK does not yet receive contracts from Esa proportionate to the value of the funding UKSA provides,” according to the NAO report. It cited a February 2023 UKSA committee meeting paper that said UK companies received an estimated 93p for every £1 UKSA contributed to Esa (excluding Esa’s internal operating costs). The same committee paper said the UK had the “highest cumulative deficit” of any Esa member, equating to around €168.5m since October 2015.

But the report noted that UKSA, with Esa’s help, is working to increase the value of contracts the UK receives. Furthermore, benefits of UK participation in Esa do not boil down to just the money that industry and academia receive from the contracts themselves; participation also gives UK space companies access to large-scale space programmes that would be “challenging to replicate nationally”, the report said.

For instance, UKSA, with other countries, is investing in Esa’s Juice mission, which aims to orbit Jupiter and three of its largest moons at a total cost of around €1.6 billion. The UK’s contribution to this mission, the report noted, is in line with its existing space strategy in the areas of discovery and Earth observation.

A closer UK-EU intergalactic bond

While the NAO report is likely to incite some debate regarding UK participation in the programme, new science secretary Kyle said in his first speech in the role on 22 July that he wants to work closely with Esa on space.

“Working closely with our international partners, including the European Space Agency, I want to forge a strategic partnership with businesses, researchers and investors,” he said.

Kyle said his department will be focusing on collaboration, long-term solutions and long-term funding cycles for space.

“To create opportunities for companies to start, scale and succeed in the UK, to create the good jobs that bring prosperity to communities up and down our country, these sectors need to learn from space and space needs to lead the way,” he said.

Slow progress

In the speech, Kyle announced £33m for innovative businesses from UKSA’s National Space Innovation Programme and pointed out that Glasgow “now makes more satellites than anywhere in Europe”.

The Conservatives published the UK’s National Space Strategy in 2021, which saw spending for UKSA increase by 73 per cent from 2018-19 to 2022-23, reaching £647m.

But three years later, UKSA and the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology are still in the early stages of “identifying and developing the plans and capabilities needed to deliver the strategy’s ambitions”, according to the NAO report.

The report also highlighted that UKSA “has not made as much progress as it planned on its programmes”, delivering less than three-quarters of its “high-level milestones” in 2022-23 against its planned deadlines.

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This week: PSL University appoints president, researchers win parliamentary seats and a neuroscience unit opens

In depth: Antoine Petit, the president of the CNRS, has urged the EU to incorporate the view in its next research and innovation programme that “fundamental research must not only be ‘curiosity-driven’ but also ‘goal-oriented’”.

Full story: French agency head wants ‘goal-oriented’ basic research in FP10

Also this week from Research Professional News

€100m social science scheme accused of ‘Parisian bias’—University head hits out at elimination of regional institutions from flagship scheme

Here is the rest of the French news this week…

PSL University appoints interim president

The economist El Mouhoub Mouhoud has been appointed interim president of PSL University following the unexpected resignation of Alain Fuchs. Mouhoud, who is president of Paris Dauphine University, part of the PSL grouping, has been appointed to a six-month term following a unanimous vote of the university board. Fuchs’s sudden resignation on 26 June, while he still had eight months of his mandate to run, was followed by the news that he was being investigated by the government’s education, sport and research inspectorate following undisclosed allegations. Mouhoud told the news agency AEF Info that he would pursue a collective mode of governance during his time in charge.

Six researchers become MPs

At least six academics were elected for the first time to the National Assembly on 7 July, according to the newspaper Libération. By the newspaper’s calculation, this brings the number of researchers in the chamber to 17 (out of 577 seats in total). The six academics identified are all on the left of the political spectrum and come from humanities and social sciences backgrounds. Claire Lejeune, a doctoral student in political ecology and now MP for the France Unbowed party, told Libération that she felt a duty to defend academic freedom, which she said was under threat from the rise of the French far right.

Boost for neuroscience research

A specialist research unit in cerebrovascular health has been opened in Bordeaux. The Vascular Brain Health Institute involves six main partner institutions including the University of Bordeaux, the national medical research agency Inserm and the digital research agency Inria. Work at the VBHI will seek to address four challenges: early diagnosis to detect and prevent vascular breakage; development of new therapeutic approaches; research on health disparities; and improved training in public health, data science and neuroscience.

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And further extension of association status should be encouraged, says CNRS president Antoine Petit

The president of the CNRS, France’s multidisciplinary research agency, has urged the EU to incorporate the view in its next research and innovation programme that “fundamental research must not only be ‘curiosity-driven’ but also ‘goal-oriented’”.

Antoine Petit said that the CNRS’s experience of working in collaboration with companies of all sizes “contradicts the idea that the needs of companies are limited to innovation issues at an advanced stage of development. Companies also need fundamental research and cooperation with academic players to anticipate and prepare for tomorrow’s innovations.”

Petit’s remarks were published by the CNRS on 17 July as a follow-up to the agency’s position paper, published earlier this month, on Framework Programme 10, which is due to succeed the EU’s current Horizon Europe R&I programme in 2028.

In that paper, the CNRS suggested a raft of changes in FP10 to strengthen the pipeline from fundamental research to societal impact.

International expansion

In his follow-up statement, which was presented as a Q&A, Petit addressed the growth in the number of non-EU countries associating with Horizon Europe, which could “raise questions, particularly on issues of equity in funding, strategic orientations or sovereignty”, according to the lead-in question.

In response, Petit stressed that cooperation was the lifeblood of research and he welcomed the association of new non-EU countries with FP10. He said that extension of association status should always be in accordance with the EU’s principles, including commitments to academic freedom, gender equality and open science.

He noted the efforts of the Widera work programme to support countries whose R&I performance lags behind the average, saying: “The CNRS robustly supports the strengthening of collaboration with less developed European countries, while urging scientific excellence never to be compromised.”

Elsewhere in the statement, Petit admitted that the CNRS’s call to more than double the funding for FP10 relative to Horizon Europe, by raising it to €200 billion, was “ambitious”. But he also said: “If Europe wants to count on the international scene, it must invest at least as much as its competitors.” Horizon Europe has a budget of about €93.5bn for 2021-27.

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First European Open Science Cloud platform to be presented to scientific community in October

A collaboration involving the European Commission, working to create a new platform for European researchers to share information and services, is seeking views from researchers on interest and readiness for the service.

The collaboration wants views from the scientific community to help it build European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) ‘nodes’.

Various nodes—platforms for researchers to publish, find and reuse data and services for research, innovation and educational purposes—will be created to form what will be called the EOSC Federation.

The EOSC EU Node, which will provide a blueprint for other potential infrastructure nodes, is being presented to the scientific community this October.

EU researchers will also be able to find tools and support for their work on this platform.

‘Intensifying discussions’

Discussions “are intensifying on the aims, structure and tasks of the individual EOSC Nodes that will complement the EOSC EU Node to initiate the formation of the EOSC Federation,” according to a press release from the European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures (ESFRI) encouraging its members to take part in the questionnaire.

It added: “Based on the replies to the questionnaire, several organisations will be invited by the Tripartite Governance to contribute to the refinement of the EOSC Federation concept during the build-up phase.”

The collaboration is also made up of the EOSC Association, an organisation that works to advance open science, and the EOSC steering board, which includes representatives of EU member states and other countries associated with the research programme Horizon Europe.

Organisations ensuring “the best possible representation of various countries” will be invited to help refine the EOSC Federation based on answers to the questionnaire.

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Latest European Parliamentary appointments include new chairs for key sector committees

Members of the European Parliament have voted in new committee chairs to lead policy discussions in areas including education and research.

Committee chairs are appointed for a period of two-and-a-half years, during which they lead policy discussions in their thematic area and develop proposals that will then be examined by the entire Parliament.

Education

The committee on culture and education voted for Nela Riehl, an MEP with the German Green party, as its new chair. She defeated Malika Sorel, a French MEP with the Patriots for Europe, by 18 votes to 11. 

Riehl is a former high school teacher from Hamburg who will be serving her first term as an MEP.

During this term, her committee will be involved in negotiations on implementing the European Higher Education Area. This will focus on quality assurance and cross-border degree recognition, as well as the continued European University Initiative, with the aim of facilitating cross-border university alliances.

Riehl is replacing German Christian Democrat Sabine Verheyen, who has been chair of the committee for the past five years.

Although Verheyen was eager to champion education and culture ahead of the European election, she stood down to assist Parliament president Roberta Metsola as one of her 14 vice-presidents.

Research

Polish MEP Borys Budka was nominated by fellow European People’s Party representative Christian Ehler to become chair of the Parliamentary committee on industry, research and energy, and ran unopposed.

Christian Democrat Budka, who is taking over from the Romanian MEP Cristian Bușoi, is also a first-time MEP. He was previously minister of justice and minister of state assets in the Polish government, a position he left to join the European Parliament.

In the coming months, his committee will be leading discussions on Framework Programme 10, the successor to the EU’s research funding framework programme Horizon Europe, which ends in 2027.

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DAAD fears smaller budget will limit its effectiveness

The German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) has criticised a proposed €13 million cut in its budget for 2025, just as the organisation was preparing to celebrate its centenary. 

“In view of DAAD’s 100th anniversary next year, the planned cuts in our basic funding hurt us very much,” said DAAD president Joybrato Mukherjee in a statement.

“In its coalition agreement, the federal government… promised DAAD an annual increase in its basic funding of 3 per cent. With the current draft, it is not honouring its own target.

“Foreign cultural, educational and scientific policy is of fundamental importance for our country. Academic cooperation with our international partners will be noticeably weakened,” he added. 

Basic funding

The federal government’s current draft budget for 2025 provides DAAD with €205 million in basic funding from the foreign office, the statement said. But for the current year, the German Bundestag approved a budget of €218m. So, if the new draft budget for next year is agreed, it would mean a funding shortfall of 6 per cent. 

This basic funding allows DAAD to function and supports scholarships for international students and the funding of German academics. It also funds lecturers at universities around the world, as well as cooperation between German universities and international partners, the statement said.

DAAD also receives funding for worldwide academic exchanges from several public donors. The largest amounts are provided by other federal ministries, notably the research and international development ministries. 

Mukherjee said he hoped the planned cuts will be re-examined in further discussions in the German Bundestag before they take effect. 

Crucial international role

In a separate statement, the German U15 group of leading research universities criticised the proposed cuts both to DAAD and the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation (AvH).

Those two organisations are “crucial for maintaining Germany’s position in the global scientific system”, it said in a statement.

“The cuts in the basic funding of both organisations, which have now been approved by the cabinet, are irritating and undermine the importance that the federal government itself attaches to the… international nature of the German scientific system,” it said.

Chairman of the German U15 board Michael Hoch said: “The cuts would noticeably weaken international academic cooperation and the German science system.”

The government has emphasised the importance of foreign cultural and educational policy and scientific diplomacy for an integrated security policy for Germany in its national security strategy published last year, the group’s statement said.

‘Promote understanding of Germany’

In its strategy document, the federal government recognised that it relies heavily on efficient intermediary organisations such as the DAAD and the AvH to achieve its goals. The federal government explicitly stated it wanted to strengthen these bodies to help promote understanding of Germany and encourage networking with colleagues around the world, the German U15 statement said.

Moreover, just four weeks ago, government adopted a new strategy on the internationalisation of universities, which emphasised the “outstanding role of international scientific cooperation in securing Germany’s innovative strength and as a basic requirement for excellent research, teaching and transfer”, the university group said.

German U15 represents the interests of research-intensive and internationally visible German universities. The U15 universities educate almost a third of all German and international students, and supervise half of all doctoral theses completed in Germany. The U15 universities also attract two-fifths of public third-party funding, and as much as 60 per cent of funds in the biomedical sector, according to the statement.

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New member for the EU’s Mediterranean research and innovation partnerships

Lebanon has joined the EU’s Mediterranean public-private partnership for research and innovation funding, following a ceremony this week.

The head of unit for international cooperation at the Directorate General of Research and Innovation, Nienke Buisman, met with the Lebanese ambassador to the EU, Fadi Haj Ali, and Tamara Elzein, the secretary-general of the French national research funder, CNRS, at the event on 22 July. There they signed an agreement on Lebanon joining the EU’s Partnership on Research and Innovation in the Mediterranean Area (Prima), according to a statement from the European Commission.

The Commission said “the positive outcome of the negotiations marks a success for the EU and Lebanon in the current geopolitical situation in the region”.

Prima initiative

Prima is a 10-year funding initiative launched in 2018 that the EU is expected to support with up to €325 million in funding from the previous financial framework programme, Horizon 2020, as well as the current Horizon Europe programme. Participating states are also expected to contribute €384m over the same period.

Lebanon will now be able to take part in Prima research funding calls for the remaining period of 2024-2027, which represents “an important step towards enhanced cooperation”, according to the Commission.

Representatives at the ceremony highlighted “the strategic importance of Prima in contributing to tackling global challenges, in particular in water and food security”, the Commission stated.

Prima consists of 20 countries; including 13 member states. The external members include Tunisia and Turkey, which are both associated with Horizon 2020 and Horizon Europe, together with Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon and Morocco.

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