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NTNU is dedicated to contributing to the success of Horizon 2020. The goal of the university is to double its income from Horizon 2020 compared to the 7th Framework Programme (FP7). This is indeed challenging bearing in mind that success rates have decreased dramatically. Still as Norway’s largest university with 39000 students and 6700 employees a national responsibility for technology research and education a main profile in science and technology as well as a broad-based profile including social sciences humanities architecture and medicine Horizon 2020 offers the university a gold mine of opportunities to engage in exciting research and innovation projects together with excellent scientists and practitioners worldwide.
For the second half of Horizon 2020 as well as for future framework programmes we strongly believe at NTNU that Europe will benefit from a continuation of the “Excellence” pillar as a cornerstone of the programmes. Curiosity-driven research frontier technological research word-class infrastructures as well as researcher mobility and training must be sufficiently funded for Europe to tackle existing and future societal challenges through innovative solutions.
At NTNU we are also convinced that Europe will benefit from a better balance between basic research and innovation in the framework programmes. So far the Horizon 2020 “Societal Challenges” pillar thematic programmes have overall given priority to projects with high technology readiness levels (TRLs). A lack of funding of middle TRL research may eventually lead to an insufficient science base to support high TRL research and innovation for society and industry. More funding for middle TRL research is of utmost importance to fill the potential gap between low and high TRL research. To avoid a potential valley of death the connection between fundamental research and innovation needs to be strengthened.
Furthermore the level of funding for collaborative projects in the Horizon 2020 “Societal Challenges” and “Industrial Leadership” pillars is not sufficiently aligned with expectations. Cutting budgets while retaining the original ambitious goals in conjunction with a drop in success rates is a matter of concern. Oversubscription is a fact. Only one in four high-quality proposals is funded. This is a clear indication that collaborative science is being underfunded. The low success rates are discouraging to academia research institutes and industry alike. Europe will benefit from sufficient and sustainable funding levels for collaborative projects as they play a fundamental role in the integration of knowledge in Europe and are vital in the implementation of the European Research Area.
All views expressed in this article are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect those of EUA.
Gunnar Bovim is the Rector of the Norwegian University of Science and Technology and a member of the EUA Research Policy Working Group.
