Organiser of the EU’s main science conference goes bankrupt

EuroScience, the association behind the European Science Open Forum (ESOF), Europe’s largest science conference has gone bankrupt after failing to secure funding for the 2026 event.

This year’s ESOF will go on as planned in Katowice, Poland, but uncertainty looms over the future after the European Commission, a co-funder of the conference, changed the way it allocates money for the biennial event, prompting other supporters to pull out. 

EuroScience was set up in 1997 by a group of 250 scientists and research professionals from 25 European countries, with the goal of bringing together people interested in science, technology and the humanities. The association has actively participated in shaping science and technology policy in Europe, but it is mainly known for launching the ESOF conference, with the first event taking place in Stockholm in 2004.

The ambition was to replicate the annual event of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), which is the world’s flagship science event. Bringing the concept to Europe meant the continent would have a broader, membership-based science association.

“Financial troubles [at EuroScience] are not that new,” said Martin Andler, French mathematician and former vice president of EuroScience, who now runs the Initiative for Science in Europe. The problems got more acute after the 2020 conference in Trieste, when the COVID-19 pandemic increased costs.

According to secretary general Matthias Girod, EuroScience has been trying to improve its model and rebuild its cash reserves, but that became increasingly difficult. “The world after Corona and in the aftermath of the Russian invasion of Ukraine was not the same. The increased costs of living and basically everything made it increasingly difficult to finance EuroScience normal operations, let alone pay back debts,” Girod said.

The first ESOF conference got off the ground when an initial grant from the Swedish Research Council used to attract more funding from charities and other organisations,

The Commission stepped in as anchor funder of the second ESOF in Munich and has given €10 million to organise subsequent events The money is funnelled through grant agreements issued to 11 distinct legal entitites, usually the local organisers. The cities hosting the events are also designated ‘European City of Science’.

But in June last year, the Commission told EuroScience that from 2026 it would no longer fund a single European City of Science, and instead hold an open call inviting applications from a consortium of European cities.

The call, ‘Science comes to town’, will open in April. A Commission official said this would allow EuroScience or other entities to be part of a proposal submitted to the future call. 

“EuroScience is welcome to apply to the many available calls under Horizon Europe, including the future call to be opened on ‘Science comes to town’,” the official said.  

The Commission says the change is not intended to block funding for ESOF but rather to make the allocation of funding more tansparent, as part of a competitive call for a consortium of European cities to organise science communication events, which could include ESOF 2026.

Without the guarantee of EU funding, EuroScience decided at the end of 2023 that it could not carry on, and the Strasbourg-based organisation is now being liquidated. “We arrived in 2024 without any guaranteed income and perspective until 2026 and a loan on our back,” said Girod, who has decided to leave his post at the end of the month.

Each ESOF has cost about €4 million, of which the Commission covered about €1 million. The rest was raised from donations, sponsorships and grants from local and regional authorities.

One of the founding fathers of ESOF, Carl Johan Sundberg, professor at the department of phisiology and pharmacology at the Karolinska Insitutet, said having a dedicated line in the Horizon Europe budget helps local organisers attract other sponsors.  The competitive Science comes to town route call will not have the same pull. “The bidding mechanism would be a poison pill for many organisers,” Sundberg said.

Brian Cahill, a member of the EuroScience board since 2018 told Science|Business the financial model was not diversified enough. “The association had a small membership,” he said. With its budget dependent on contributions from the EU, every time there was a change in the Commission’s directorate, ESOF funding was put into question. 

Saving ESOF

A group of scientists and research managers are now scrambling to safeguard the ESOF trademark and organise a 2026 conference without EU funding.

Sundberg said Stockholm had been interested in organising ESOF 2026 but gave up after it became apparent that EU funding is no longer guaranteed.

“It’s unclear if it’s going to be saved,” said Andler. As things stand, there is no candidate city to organise it in 2026, and no planned income for 2025. “If there had been any income, then they might have been able to do something,” he said.

Since Euroscience is being liquidated, anyone could acquire the ESOF brand name. Regardless of what happens to the name, Europe needs a grassroot organisation of scientists and an international conference, Sundberg said, “Saving the spirit of ESOF is more important, it doesn’t matter if we keep or not the same name,” he said.  “It depends who will take the initiative.”

Editor’s note: Every two years, ESOF conferences become the top-profile meeting point for much of the European research and innovation community – featuring as speakers EU commissioners, member state ministers, Nobel prize winners and many university and company leaders. Science|Business is among the scores of organisations that organised panel discussions during the conferences, and its executives served from 2008 to 2018 on various planning committees for the event.