Bridging the innovation gap with Horizon 2020 – but how?

With the Parliament having approved the EU’s budget for the next seven years, as well as the legislative package for Horizon 2020, the attention of researchers across Europe is now turning to the finer details. In the coming weeks, Science|Business will see what’s on offer in the various draft work programmes, kicking off with ‘Spreading Excellence and Widening Participation, which will receive 1.06 per cent of the €70 billion budget, with the aim of addressing the growing divide between Europe’s innovation leaders and followers.

The most elaborate action in this programme, The Teaming Initiative, will allow a research-intensive university to partner up with an organisation from a low-performing region to build or upgrade a centre of excellence in that region. Its suggested implementation, as laid out in the draft work programme, has received a mixed response from stakeholders, with Herbert Reul, the MEP behind the initiative, saying that the Commission does not seem to fully recognise the burden that ‘teaming’ imposes on leading research institutions. “The Commission seems to expect them to provide their most valuable asset, their reputation, without anything in return,” he told Science|Business. “This cannot work."

Elsewhere, the proposal has received a warm reception, with Massimo Busuoli, Secretariat of the European Energy Research Alliance (EERA), says twinning and teaming, “look like the perfect instruments to create bridges between relevant players in eastern countries and EERA members.” This will open the door to their participation in the alliance, he said, which currently only sees two per cent participation from research stakeholders in Eastern Europe.

Teaming up across Europe

“Teaming for excellence is about bringing together the reputation of Europe’s leading research institutions and the ambitions of regional authorities of low research and innovation performing regions,” said Reul. The regional authorities will provide the physical infrastructures and an excellent environment for innovation, while the leading research institution will offer its reputation and management expertise.

The scheme will start in 2014 with two phases: the first will support selected partnerships to produce a detailed business plan for a centre, demonstrating how it would contribute to the development of a cluster in that region. After a year, the Commission will evaluate all of the business plans, and choose a select few to receive further support for the start-up and implementation of the centre over a five – seven year period.

Undesirable use of Horizon 2020 funds

The Commission envisages proposals with a budget of between €200,000 and €500,000 for stage one and between €15 and €20 million for stage two. The draft programme states that Horizon 2020 funds will not be used to support infrastructure or large equipment costs in stage two, but the League of European Research Universities (LERU) is concerned about this top-up investment. “What does the ‘start-up’ of a centre involve?” asked Kurt Deketelaere, LERU Secretary General. “Is it building the institution itself? Does it go towards hiring people for the centre? Horizon 2020 has a limited budget of €70 billion to fund excellence, and this would be an undesirable use of its funds,” he said.

In fact, LERU sees the second stage of the programme as unnecessary, “If the business plan is convincing enough, that should be enough for the relevant region to use its cohesion funds to invest in the centre,” said Deketelaere. “You shouldn’t expect everything to come from Europe,” he said, “Charity starts at home”.

Another issue is that of striking a balance between the two partners, with LERU also expressing its concerns over the Commission’s proposal to make the newly created legal entity – the centre – the only contracting partner. This means that the expert university would not be a party to the contract, and, “Would lose any steering mechanism, namely to administer the funds given to the teaming project from Horizon 2020,” said Deketelaere. “We would highly recommend that the leading university becomes a contracting partner,” he said.

Reul also expressed concern over the imbalance between the partners. “I hope the Commission will adapt the draft in a way which makes teaming for excellence an interesting option for both sides,” he said.

Defining eligibility

In a programme where almost all actions are open only to “low performing regions” and their partners, the definition of “low performing” will be crucial to determining who can take part.

In a proposal from the Commission, seen by Science|Business, it is suggested that a “composite indicator” will be used to ensure that “spreading excellence” funds are targeted in the right direction. This indicator will assess the modernisation of research institutions, the vitality of the research environment, and the quality of research outputs in every country.

Using the most recent figures, this would mean that all of Eastern Europe would be able to apply for the widening participation schemes, but other countries whose R&D systems have suffered badly from the economic crisis would not. “I am surprised to learn that member states from the south of Europe are kept outside,” said Reul, referring to the fact that Spain, Italy and Greece are classified as ineligible.

“The world is competing for excellent researchers and inventors,” said Reul. “Generous offers to work at prestigious places outside of Europe are waiting for our best brains.” With even the best-performing countries finding it difficult to keep their top researchers, the news that much of southern Europe may be excluded from these new initiatives is a tough blow.

Spreading excellence and widening participation

The draft work programme includes a number of other schemes to bridge the divide.

Under the twinning scheme, an emerging institution will be linked with at least two international leading counterparts in a particular field of research. This will take the form of staff exchanges, expert visits, workshops, conferences, joint summer schools, and so on.

The system of European Research Area Chairs, which began under a pilot in December 2012, will continue under Horizon 2020, enabling universities and research institutions to host a leading academic for a period of five years. It is hoped that a high profile appointment in a low-performing region will allow the relevant institution to attract more top researchers and thus develop the level of excellence required to compete internationally.

But Busuoli says the scheme excludes large research centres that are scattered across a country, such as the CNRS in France, by limiting participation to entities legally established in the regions targeted by the call.  “This hampers those [de-centralised] research labs, which present the same problems and issues, normally related to local conditions, from having the possibility to exploit their excellence by using the ERA Chairs instrument,” he said.