The research budget guessing game: €86B? €105B? Rumours abound in leaky Brussels

Research lobbying groups rushed the halls of the Berlaymont last week, to give civil servants an earful – and sometimes a tweetful – on what to preserve in the EU’s once-in-seven-years, multi-billion euro battle for resources.

It was a week, also, that saw a wide distribution of unauthorised information – although none of it containing the salient piece of information everyone wants: a budget overview.

That there will be more money for research in Wednesday’s long-term EU budget proposal announcement is little doubted here – it’s a question of how much, and that’s proving difficult to pin down.

The European Parliament wants to see today’s €77-odd billion allocation for research transform into €120 billion in the next budget, known as the Multiannual Financial Framework, which will run from 2021 to 2027. European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, who rarely speaks about EU research, has casually conjured up a blockbuster figure of €160 billion.

It’s unlikely to be either figure, although lobbyists are keeping the pressure cranked high.

“Anything less than doubling the budget would be a disappointment for Europe,” said Jan Palmowski, secretary-general of the Guild, which campaigns for 19 universities across the continent. 

Yet others, mindful that the EU is losing one of its biggest net contributors in the UK next year, are remaining sober: one rumoured number on Friday suggested will be a bit less than everyone would like: €105 billion. 

And some are more wary still, pitching the amount at a lot less than everyone wants: at €90 billion, or a curiously-specific €86 billion.

This being Brussels, the figure will be finalised at the very last moment. A decision on how to find the money to start the European Institute of Innovation and Technology, for instance, was only made the night before the final Framework Programme budget decisions in 2008 – through a personal intervention by then-President José Manuel Barroso. Now, with the May 2 budget announcement approaching fast, Commission insiders are expecting similar down-to-the-wire decisions.

The May 2 proposal will only include headline numbers for each of the budget’s main areas – and these will be debated for months upon years between the European Parliament and Council.

All the budget-breakdown details will follow in another Commission proposal in the first week of June.

Details on the content of the next research programme, disclosed this week in a swath of leaks, are already sending lobbyists scrambling.

One flurry of activity centred on the European Research Council, the basic research funder that, due to its success since its 2007 launch, has become something of a sacred political cow in Brussels. A key part of its success, its supporters say, has been its unique legal structure that gives its governing Scientific Council greater autonomy than the norm – and that appeared to many as under threat in the current budget negotiations.

A document supporting the ERC’s legal status was called into question by lawyers in the agency’s central administration, raising the possibility of it being made more like other EU agencies. For the ERC’s 22-member Council, that was an alarming prospect – and at a meeting 19 April they raised questions about it with Jean-Eric Paquet, Director-General for Research and Innovation. His response: Don’t worry, it will be fixed. But as of a week later, the issue still hadn’t appeared to be resolved and alarm bells were going off among ERC supporters.

Kurt Deketelaere, secretary-general of the League of European Research Universities, an association of 23 universities, tweeted to the head of the Commission’s civil service, the notorious Martin Selmayr, that the proposal would be “a declaration of war” on the science community.

“My fear is that the council will be reduced to a sounding board of experts in the future. To avoid that, we need a clear, continued legal affirmation of their role,” Deketelaere said.

The most vocal battle thus far, meanwhile, is being fought by industry lobbyists, who are worried about a proposal to mix together elements from the current research programme’s ‘societal challenges’ and ‘leadership in enabling industrial technologies’ sections. An open letter sent by industry association Business Europe to EU Research Commissioner Carlos Moedas last month called for the programme to maintain a dedicated industry pillar.

“It is hard to understand why the EU would take the risk of putting into question an instrument which has been successful in raising industry participation after a constant drop in FP7,” the letter reads.

Moedas went to the European Parliament on Tuesday to justify his plans to a group of sceptical lobbyists. “We still don’t know how it will be shaped,” said Alexandre Affre, director of industrial affairs at Business Europe.

Civil society groups are also upset about this proposed structure – but for different reasons.

Two health advocacy groups, Deutsche Stiftung Weltbevoelkerung and Global Health Advocates, say they are “alarmed about the possible impact that combining issues like health, climate change and industrial competitiveness will have on the Commission’s ability to deliver a research agenda that that can deliver on the real concerns of people in Europe and in the wider world.”