What's on the Horizon?

Cue 'Ode to Joy' (photo: Phil Ward)

A proposal for Horizon Europe, the successor to Horizon 2020, is due to be published on 7 June 2018. However there have been plenty of hints, suggestions and straightforward leaks already, and the current plan is the worst kept secret ever. So what do we know so far? Well, unless there are significant changes in the next couple of weeks, here are the seven take home points.

What You Need to Know: the UKRI Strategic Prospectus

You will have read the Boiled down Basics on the Prospectus, but what’s it really about? Here are the seven take home points.

What the public wants: jetpacks, and lots of them
(photo: Samuel Johnson)

Boiled down Basics: the UKRI Strategic Prospectus

This week UKRI published its Strategic Prospectus, which outlines the new agency’s direction of travel. We’ve summarised the 55 page document for those who know it’s important but don’t have time to wade through it. What do you need to know, and what can you ignore?

Boiled down basics: 55 pages into 700 words
(photo: Larry & Teddy Page)

The Price of Prosecco

Kortrijk. Helps salve the horror of Brexit (image: R/DV/RS CC BY)

With more detail of the EU's next Framework Programme, Horizon Europe, crystallising in Brussels, it's time to look back at an article I wrote last year on the need for Britain's academic leaders to lobby MEPs and make the case for the UK's continuing involvement. 

When Theresa May wrote to Donald Tusk informing him of the UK’s intention to leave the EU, I made sure I was out of the country. It felt too dispiriting for a Europhile to witness this act of self-harm. I cycled down from my home in Canterbury and went through the Eurotunnel, emerging into the bright flatlands of Nord Pas de Calais and then cycling on to the Belgian border, stopping at the end of the day for a beer in the beautiful town of Kortrijk.

As the sun went down on the medieval square, I thought about the effect that the UK’s withdrawal would have on our engagement with the EU, and in particular how it would affect our work both in securing research funding and in encouraging the brightest European minds to work in our universities.

Conversion Conversations

Alchemy: like getting a research grant,
only easier (image: Wellcome CC BY)

Last week Alex Hulkes, the Economic and Social Research Council’s strategic lead for the insights team, wrote an interesting report on the council’s conversion rate for grants. This is the percentage of fundable grants that it is able to fund. In November he provided a similar analysis of success rates. Taken together, the two reports suggest that while the quality of applications has increased (the proportion of ‘fundable’ applications has risen from roughly one-quarter to half of the total), the success rate is pretty much where it was five years ago.

To Infinity and Beyond

Horizon Europe: an artist's impression

Those of you with long memories may remember the naming of Horizon 2020. There was a competition to come up with a shortlist of names. This was then put to a public vote. Horizon 2020 won by a mere 270 votes. The runner up was Imagine 2020, which frankly sounds more like a futuristic question than a bold title.

This time round they've eschewed a public vote in favour of a decision by an anonymous group, with an announcement slipped out in a blogpost written by Carlos Moedas. I really can't think *why* the EC may have been nervous about putting things to a public vote.