Despite improvements, low success rates mean many researchers struggle to justify the time and money spent on applying for EU research funds
Photo credits: nnastasiia7 / BigStock
Low success rates and high preparation costs are making applicants sceptical about whether applying for Horizon Europe grants is worth the effort.
The European Commission’s interim evaluation of the programme, published in April, found that 44% of applicants consider their application costs disproportionate.
Many applicants reiterated this concern in their answers to the survey’s open questions. The strong response led the Commission to conclude that “there is strong qualitative evidence that for a substantial share of applicants the application cost is not proportionate to their chances of securing Horizon Europe funding."
But it’s not all doom and gloom. While still low, success rates are up compared to the previous research Framework Programme, Horizon 2020, in which they were barely 12%. Now, they are 16.4% on average, although in some of the schemes run by the European Innovation Council, the success rates fall as low as 4% some years. …
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