European Funding: A History in Logos

Although the draft work programmes for the EC's new Framework Programme, Horizon Europe, are being leaked and the Portugese presidency is making it a priority to get things moving on it, the main question has yet to be answered: what's the logo for it, and how does it compare to previous iterations? Fortunately, fearless Fundermentals is here to help. 

Beyond the Horizon

The long goodbye

With the UK due to leave the European Union on 31 January 2020, what’s ahead for international research funding for UK researchers? 

Open Access: Europe's Plan A-R Explained

A publisher mansplains 'Titanium OA'
(photo: Rawpixel via Unsplash)

There was much excitement in Brussels this week with the publication of 'Plan S', the European Commission's plan to make all scholarly publications resulting from public research funding open access from 1 January 2020.

But the big question is: what happened to Plans A-R? Robert-Jan Smits, Senior Advisor on Open Access within the European Political Strategy Centre, spoke exclusively to Fundermentals.

'It was a long and difficult process,' suggests, Smits, 'and it took us many months and an awful lot of coffee.'

Smits set out the process that they had been through to reach Plan S, and the 18 previous plans that got them there.

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.

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.

Rodney Takes over European Research

In a surprise move, seen by some as offering a soothing pat on the head to the off shore asylum formerly known as Britain, the European Commission has appointed Rodney Trotter as the new Director General of DG Research and Innovation.

He succeeds long term incumbent Harvey Keitel, who held the position for eight years. He was a highly regarded Director General, but great things are expected of his successor.

'He knows how to hold his nerve and remain steady,' said an unnamed source very very very close to Jean-Claude Junker. 'Although he appears to be playing second fiddle to a loudmouth chancer with delusions of grandeur, he actually has very little to do with David Davis - I mean Jason,' he quickly corrected.

Any similarity to Jean-Eric Paquet is, of course, entirely coincidental.

Trotter

Paquet

Who Ya Gonna Call?

Downtown Brussels. Help is just a phonecall away (photo: Elliott Brown)

With the news that the UK's participation until the end of H2020 has been secured, now is the time to dust off your proposal and get working for the deadlines in the early months of next year - and beyond. But do you need help with preparing it, or questions about the detail? There is a network of national contact points (NCPs) who can help you. It is sometimes hard to track these down, so here they are, in cut-out-and-keep form:

Bonfire of the Sanities

Since the EU Referendum last year, there has been a lot of uncertainty about what it will mean for UK academics. In the last edition of the Research Services' newsletter, Research Active, we looked at known unknowns, and why European funding is crucial to the University—and the UK as a whole.

Current Situation

The EU has made it clear that, until the UK actually leaves the Union, it is still a full Member State, with all ‘rights and obligations’: ‘UK legal entities [are eligible] to participate and receive funding in Horizon 2020 actions,’ it confirmed.

Brexit and the Suffocating Dog of Research

After the storm, the clear up. Or rather, after the storm, the running for cover. As the UK political infrastructure goes into meltdown, and politicians shake their heads sadly and claim that it was nothing to do with them - it's the 'will of the people' - a number of colleagues have asked about how Brexit will affect the UK’s ability to access European research funding, Horizon 2020. 

How to Prepare a Successful ERC Application

Last Wednesday we hosted Maribel Glogowski, our UKRO representative, who gave a thoughtful overview of the European Research Council (ERC) and offered insights into how best to target the funder. Dr Heather Ferguson, who recently won a Starting Grant, joined her to offer an invaluable viewpoint from someone who had been through the process.

Background

The ERC has been one of the great success stories of the EC's Framework Programme. The prestigious, responsive mode fellowships were clearly what the European research community wanted, and this was demonstrated in the heavy oversubscription of the first call for Starting Grants in 2007, when over 9,000 people applied for just 300 awards, giving a success rate of just 3.4%.

Since then the situation has settled down, and now the Starting Grant success rate is actually broadly in line with that of the ESRC at 12%. In Horizon 2020, the ERC is part of the 'Excellent Science' pillar, which funds responsive mode research. Of the total €24.2bn budget for the pillar, the ERC has almost half (€13.1bn). It provides five types of grants:

●     Starting Grants: up to €2m for 5 years for investigators 2-7 years from PhD

●     Consolidator Grants: up to €2.75m for 5 years for investigators 7-14 years from PhD

●     Advanced Grants: up to €3.5m for 5 years (no set career point restriction, but investigators must be well established leaders in their fields)

●     Synergy Grants: up to €15m for 2-4 investigators. The scheme is currently on hold.

●     Proof of Concept Grants: for ERC award holders: up to €150k for 18 months.

The Story of O

Ob La Di, Ob La Da: 'Important'

There's exciting news about a reshuffle in the European Commission's DG Research and Innovation (RTD), which looks after the Horizon 2020 programme. From 1 February, DG RTD will be more fully aligned to Commissioner Carlos Moedas' '3 O' agenda: 'Open Innovation, Open Science, Open to the World.'

Whilst Fundermentals is entirely behind any policy directives based on random letters of the alphabet, we feel that Moedas has missed a trick by limiting his agenda to these three Os. They're all very well, but they're a little - well - humdrum. These Os won't set the world alight. They won't inspire the next generation of young European scientists.

Going Mobile

'The ERA? Isn't that like a European remake of Avatar?'

As regular readers of this column will know I’m something of a data geek. I don’t profess to a huge expertise, but I’m fascinated by the statistics underlying all the applications and awards we handle.

It’s like discovering the secret patterns that explain the world, which goes back to my love of semiotics. So when a colleague presented me with slides from the European Research Council outlining ‘indicative statistics’ from its Starting Grants competition last year, I was in heaven.

What interested me most was not the success rates, which have never been great for the ERC (they average about 10-15 per cent, with a low point in the first round of 3.4 per cent); rather, it was the mobility.

H2020: Year One Report Card

Horizon 2020, the European Commission’s main programme for distributing research funding across Europe, has now been running for a little over a year, so it seems like a good time to check in on how things are going so far. 

We have already had 79 calls, and researchers across Europe have responded by submitting 25,903 proposals, asking for some €41bn. Around 14.5% of these have been successful (3,765), totalling €6.6bn. That’s around 8.5% of the total H2020 budget of €70bn for the seven year programme.

Launch of the Kent EU Partnership Fund

Kent, as the UK's European university, is strongly supportive of the development of collaborations with European partners. 

In order to facilitate these, funding is available to cover the cost of developing exchanges and visits. Details of how to access this Fund are now available on the Research Services website, here.  

If you have any questions about it, don’t hesitate to get in touch with me.

H2020: Taking Stock

We're now five months into Horizon 2020. We've had the first call deadlines, and it's time to take stock.

European Grants Factory - 9 May

On 9 May we will be joining in the University’s celebrations for ‘Europe Day’ by holding two European Grants Factory events.

12:00 – 13:00 An Overview of Horizon 2020
Sobia Aslam (UKRO) 
Rutherford Lecture Theatre 2 

Sobia Aslam from the UK Research Office in Brussels (UKRO) will provide an overview of the EU’s new funding programme for research, Horizon 2020. It will succeed Framework Programme 7 (FP7) in January next year. It has a proposed €80 billion budget (a 46% increase over FP7), will bring together both research and innovation, and is intended to simplify the process of applying to the EC. Draft work programmes will start to emerge over the summer, so now is an excellent time to find out more about the new framework.

 In addition, Sobia will be holding a surgery session after lunch to discuss individual applications, or focus on specific issues. So if you have questions about H2020, or perhaps have a Marie Curie application on the go, get in touch to book a slot.

13:00-13:30 – Lunch 

13:30-15:00 – European Funding: is it for me? 
Prof Simon Thompson (Computing) & Jenny Billings (CHSS) 
Rutherford Lecture Theatre 2 

This is a rerun of last year’s sell-out seminar that offers a warts and all view of the European funding. The EC is notorious for the complexity of its applications, but unlike the UK funding for research is ringfenced and growing. Jenny Billings (CHSS) and Simon Thompson (Computing), both veterans of EU funding, offer their insights into the highs and lows of applying for, managing and reviewing European applications.

The events are free, but do let me know if you are planning to come so that I can make sure there’s enough space and catering for all.

Mists, Mellow Fruitfulness & ERC Deadlines

Ah, Autumn. Season of mists, mellow fruitfulness and ERC deadlines. Yes, with the deadline for Starting Grants on 17 Oct and Advanced Grants on 22 Nov applicants should now be polishing and pimping their applications, fettling and finalising their bids. UKRO has been providing some useful workshops for those planning to apply (there's still time to attend the ones that are scheduled for later this month and October), and it's worth bearing in mind some hints and tips that have come out of these.

• Firstly, try and get a look at previously successful applications. This is true for any funder, of course, but perhaps more so for the EU, as people are often confused by the specific language and structure that is expected. Seeing how someone else has done it really helps.
• Secondly, and following on from this, make sure you 'give them what they want'. Look at the criteria, and make sure you are meeting them. These grants are about you and your project: be clear why you are the right person with an exciting, ground breaking project at the 'frontier' of knowledge.
• In turn, leading on from this, the ERC are looking for something different. Perhaps more than any other funder, this is the chance to take risks, to do something challenging. So use your imagination and think big - but couch it in a robust managerial framework that will reassure those of a nervous disposition.
• Get feedback. Lots of feedback. Here at Kent we've got the Internal Peer Review system, so get in touch with us as early as possible. But get feedback elsewhere, too: your proposal needs to be easily understood and inspiring by people who might not know the field, and whose first language may not be English. 
• Submit early and often. Each time you submit it overwrites your last version. Don't leave it until the last minute when there will be, inevitably, a software crash.
• If you're shortlisted for interview, prepare throughly. Set up a mock panel (we can help with this) and go through a dry run. Take on board the feedback. Go over to Brussels the day before the actual interview and scout out the terrain. You don't want to get lost and arrive breathless, confused and red faced, or get derailed by Eurostar holdups. 
• At the interview, they will use reviewers' comments to question your proposal. You won't have seen these, but try and pre-empt them by thinking what elements of your project will be seized on.
• Finally, think of the poor panel. Not only will they have ploughed through hundreds of applications, but they then have to sit for days in a small, stuffy room watching anxious academics perform. Engage them, and be enthusiastic and confident.

Thanks to Jo Frost at UKRO for running these events, and to Dr Lawrence Moon of KCL for sharing his experiences of applying to the ERC.

The Consolidator Grants came later, on 21 Feb, so annoyingly don't fit neatly into my Keatsian reference. But we never let the truth get in the way of a glib opening sentence here at Fundermentals Towers.

Preparing a European Funding Presentation: a Beginner's Guide

Here at Fundermentals Towers we've had quite literally no one beating down our door clamouring to be told the secret of how to prepare a perfect European funding presentation. With that kind of demand we had no choice but to share the 'secret six' key elements of a perfect EC PowerPoint presentation:

• First, there's no such thing as too much text. What we need is words, and lots of them; 
• Second, include absolutely all the detail about the development of the policy that underlies any scheme or programme, however unnecessary it might seem. If you could include a timeline of the negotiations that led to the adoption of that policy, that would be a bonus. Extra points can be scored by inserting a picture of the front of the policy document, entitled something like '2017: Towards a more Integrated, Forward-Looking Europe';
• Third, acronyms, acronyms, acronyms. Make sure you have at least 15 per slide, and never, ever explain them. Other than quickly, under your breath, in passing.
• Fourth, you need a flow chart. Doesn't matter what it represents. Plenty of arrows, preferably doubling back on themselves or at least double ended.
• Fifth, you must include some clip art, ideally circa 1995. If you could combine this with a garish use of colours or an eclectic mix of fonts, so much the better. If you no longer have access to your Office95 clip art suite, you can substitute these for some generic pictures of groups of young European people smiling, preferably with books clutched to their chests.
• Finally, as EC Directive 2045/12-ZD makes clear, all EC-related presentations have to end with a chirpy, 'Thank You for your Attention!' slide.

With these simple building blocks in place your success is assured, and you can look forward to a career of conference coffee and gazing out at rooms full of confused looking delegates. 

Thank You for your Attention! 

Science: It (Must Be a Borat) Thing

It's been a joy to follow today's Twitterstorm over the EC's 'Science: It's a Girl Thing' video. The video itself is pitched so perfectly that you can't help thinking that the EC drafted in Chris Morris or Sacha Baron Cohen to write and direct it. From the fixation on make up, to the music video styling, it's jaw droppingly awful. You watch it thinking, 'is this for real?'

Whilst I don't think it will attract any more women into the lab, I don't think it will put anyone off either. Women - and men - are more media savvy these days; they won't be swayed by this nonsense, and will recognise that it has nothing to do with real science.

Let's look on the bright side: it has, for better or worse, highlighted the issue of the gender imbalance in the lab. For a bit of Friday light relief, take a couple of minutes to watch it yourself:

H2020: Is Europe's Glass Half Full or Half Empty?

I attended the Research Europe Conference 2012 yesterday, which focused on the forthcoming Framework Programme, Horizon 2020. They'd rustled up an impressive roster of speakers, kicking off with the European research funding queen bee, Maire Geoghegan-Quinn, Commissioner for Research, Innovation and Science.

She gave a confident and robust overview of the forthcoming framework programme. The Commission had become more open, and H2020 was the result of an extensive consultation. 'This is your programme', she asserted, whether you are a scientist, an entrepreneur, or a businessman, working for an SME or a multinational. It was intended to be enabling and inclusive, slashing red tape, and allowing 'more time in the lab, less on administration.'

At its heart was simplification. The complex structures of past frameworks had been boiled down to three pillars: support for excellent research, support for industrial leadership, and support for societal challenges. By keeping it simple, it was hoped that the best people would be encouraged to engage with Europe, including those who hadn't been involved before, or who were 'small players'. They would be willing to take risks, and decision making would be speedier. However, writ through the programme was excellence, and this would inform all that they did. In difficult economic times it was the countries that had invested in research and development that succeeded. Europe needed to grasp this nettle and accept this challenge.

Brave words, and she left the hall with a David Steel-esque rallying cry to return to your constituencies and prepare for – um – involvement. No sooner had she left the stage than Banquo entered in the shape of Chris Hull, Secretary General of EARTO, cooling the delegates ardour somewhat by highlighting the shortcomings of the plans.

He reminded the hall that, despite all the fanfare around the inclusion of 'innovation' in H2020, this had been the case before, and it hadn't been a great success. The Commission needed to look to the past and learn the lessons if it was to avoid repeating them. Whilst he recognised the worth of simplification, he dismissed the three pillars as nothing more than 'clever marketing': there was something there to please everyone, but would anyone be satisfied?

The wording of the Commission's proposals was ambitious, and the requested budget similarly so. But in reality, when compared to Europe's competitors, €80bn was the minimum that was needed to keep up. The Commission intended to use this budget wisely, to leverage money from private organisations and national public governments. However, with the Eurozone heading for melt down, national governments were unlikely to stump up any matched funding, and commercial organisations were likely to be more bear than bull.

He finished by signalling that a different style of programme management was needed if Horizon 2020 was to succeed. Governance should be the substantial focus, with stakeholder buy in. More than anything there was a need for more detail as to (a) what innovation was actually defined, and (b) how it would fit within programme governance. This, for Hull, was 'perhaps the critical, insufficiently addressed issue absent from the Commission's proposal.' 

Hull regularly comments on the H2020 LinkedIn Group, and I'd encourage you to join this group to get a sense of the way the wind is blowing as the Programme develops.