Hungary and its prime minister Viktor Orbán have been on the minds of MEPs who in the past week have spoken about the rights and wrongs of the EU freezing much needed funds to the country, including blocking 21 universities from receiving Erasmus+ and Horizon Europe funds. We delve into the debate in this week’s newsletter. Elsewhere, the vice rector for research at Portugal’s University of Minho says that despite its increasing success in winning EU research funding, the country must maintain access to Widening measures in FP10; a Polish researcher sounds the alarm over growing mistrust in science; and Bulgarian prime minister Nikolay Denkov tells a Davos panel that Europe needs to learn to accept failure to increase its innovation performance.
Latest news
PORTUGAL AND WIDENING BELONG TOGETHER: Portugal’s future involvement in the Widening programme is essential for the long-term development of its research and innovation ecosystem, says Eugénio Campos Ferreira, vice rector for research and innovation at the University of Minho.
The country is performing well in winning funding from Horizon Europe, and is now almost on a par with several non-Widening countries. This begs the question of whether it should still have access to instruments designed to help lagging countries catch up to the top performers. Ferreira thinks losing access would be a problem. “If Widening measures are not available, it might slow down Portugal's progress in building a strong knowledge-based economy and achieving long-term sustainable development objectives,” he tells Science|Business. Read the full story here.
FAIL TO SUCCEED: ‘If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again’, so the old mantra goes, and according to Bulgarian prime minister Nikolay Denkov, the EU would do well to remember this. Speaking at the World Economic Forum this month, he said that the EU’s struggle to be a global innovation powerhouse was partly down to its hesitancy to fail. “It is something we are now changing but it takes time,” he said.
Denkov, himself a scientist, also decried the EU’s disorganised approach to public and private investments into R&I, its regulation-heavy ecosystem and an unnecessary obsession with reporting progress during research projects. Read our story here.
MEPS STAND FIRM OVER HUNGARY ERASMUS BAN: A group of MEPs led by the Slovenian Milan Zver last week challenged the EU’s ban on certain Hungarian universities accessing Erasmus+ funds. The universities have been frozen out of the student exchange programme and Horizon Europe over rule of law concerns linked to their management structures.
But the European Parliament overwhelmingly rejected the challenge and stood firm in their stance that it is up to Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán to make the necessary changes to get the funds unblocked.
Meanwhile, the Hungarian government has come up with domestic versions of Erasmus+ and Horizon Europe for the frozen-out universities, but the country’s former education minister József Pálinkás is sceptical of these working. Read the full story here.
One of the most outspoken in debates in the European Parliament last week over rule of law concerns in Hungary and the frozen Horizon Europe and Erasmus+ funds was German MEP Petra Kammerevert. She told Science|Business, “A motion on the initiative of MEP Zver, co-signed mainly by Fidesz members and right-wing populists, was not supported. It demanded that we should finally make an effort to disburse the Erasmus+ funds, regardless of the developments in Hungary. The feigned naivety of not recognising that this would undermine the hard-won rule of law mechanism fits into Orbán's narrative of the EU constantly bullying Hungarians. It's a good thing that only a few people fall for it. We want Hungarians on our side.”
Kammerevert added, “The fact that no money is flowing is an expression of our concern that democracy and freedom are becoming increasingly impossible in Hungary, and the Orbán government is solely responsible for this. It is also up to them to restore the conditions that make funding possible.”
PANDEMIC OF DISINFORMATION: The rapid development and delivery of COVID-19 vaccines and therapies might have been expected to spur a new wave of confidence and trust in science, but instead the opposite happened, says Polish professor Dariusz Jemielniak, who is leading a research project on vaccine scepticism that started during the pandemic.
He believes this lack of trust, fueled by disinformation, conspiracies and the influence of social media, is not being taken seriously enough by public or private bodies. He wants more resources and more long-term effort to rebuild the connection between the public and science. Find out more here.
HAVE SOMETHING TO SAY? We welcome opinion pieces and other contributions on R&I policy in central and eastern Europe. Send yours to [email protected].
In other news
NO PLACE FOR WIDENING IN FRAMEWORK PROGRAMME 10, SAY DANES: Denmark is calling for a new approach in which Widening measures are not funded through the next framework programme, FP10, but through structural funds. The call is laid out in the country’s position paper on FP10, seen by Science|Business.
It describes the current Widening measures as “not optimal in terms of added value measures”, argues against expanding the existing measures for FP10 and suggests current Widening countries could instead use European structural funds to close the R&I gap with Europe’s top performers.
The position paper puts reform of Widening as its first key message. It sets out Denmark’s stall early in the campaign to shape FP10 and will feed into input from other member states, stakeholders and the European Commission to be published later this year.
IVANOVA: WIDENING CHALLENGES ‘STILL PERSIST’: The European commissioner for research and innovation, Iliana Ivanova, this week told the European Parliament’s ITRE committee that challenges related to Horizon Europe’s Widening scheme “still persist”.
These include limited capacity in Widening countries to manage international R&I projects, brain drain, weak national support systems and a lack of easily available funding alternatives, the commissioner said. While there has been some progress between Horizon 2020 and Horizon Europe, much of the success is limited to just a few countries. National reforms are necessary to help close the EU’s R&I gap, but they are not the only factor, and European level initiatives such as the Widening are still important.
“We need to build on the wide European talent base and this includes engaging new players across sectors, scientific disciplines and countries,” Ivanova said.
MORE VENTURE CAPITAL: A survey of 20 venture capital firms in central and eastern Europe shows that 70% of respondents plan to invest more in 2024 compared to previous years.
The survey, conducted by media outlet The Recursive, found that VCs are more interested in supporting existing companies to grow than backing new ones. As for industries, AI and deep tech are the most attractive areas for VCs.
SOCIAL SCIENCES IN DEMAND AMONGST UKRAINIANS: A new study has found that research positions in social sciences and humanities were the most in demand amongst Ukrainian scientists displaced by the Russian invasion.
The survey was conducted by #ScienceForUkraine, an non-governmental organisation set up to support Ukraine’s academic community. Based on an analysis of its database of research opportunities, nearly 90% of offers associated with social sciences and humanities received at least one solicitation by a Ukrainian, far higher than the next most popular category, mental and health sciences, with 76.2% of offers receiving at least one solicitation.
FRENCH-CZECH NUCLEAR COLLABORATION: The French National Research Agency, ANR, has signed its first ever bilateral agreement with the Technology Agency of the Czech Republic to support research projects in the field of nuclear energy and low carbon technologies. The first calls are expected to be published this spring.
Mark your calendars
BRUSSELS, 11 - 13 MARCH: The Brussels-based research and innovation liaison offices of the four Visegrad countries, Hungary, Czechia, Slovakia and Poland, will host a training session for research project managers in February. Find out more here.
SOFIA, 22 FEBRUARY: The full-day Innovation Explorer conference in Bulgaria’s capital will welcome a speakers including the country’s president Rosen Plevneliev, local business leaders, mayors, academics and trendsetters. The purpose is to set out and discuss how innovation can drive positive change in the country, with various panels addressing the country’s role in shaping the future world. Find out more here.
KRAKOW, 15 - 16 APRIL: The Cancer Drug Development Forum is hosting a multi-stakeholder workshop on clinical research in central and eastern Europe. It will focus on the fast-growing clinical trials market in the region and how the conflict in Ukraine is playing a role in shaping it. Find out more here.
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