EUREC publishes position paper ‘Feedback on two years of Horizon 2020’
The first Work Programme 2014-2015 of the Energy Societal Challenge part of Horizon 2020 was oversubscribed due to an important shortcoming in its design. We expect this problem to be less in Work Programme 2016-2017, and that it will work better in other ways, too.
The position paper we are publishing today explores the origin of the over subscription problem, its effects and how Work Programme 2016-2017 improves its predecessor. Our paper follows up on our public event of 3 December 2015. We hope it will be taken into consideration by the SET Plan Steering Group, the Energy Programme Committee and the European Commission, which this year will start its interim evaluation of the seven-year Horizon 2020 programme, also known as the programme’s ‘Mid-term review’.
Key messages from it were presented to the ITRE Working Group on Horizon 2020 on 18 February. Among the listeners were Christian Ehler MEP, David Borelli MEP and András Siegler, Director of DG RTD.G ‘Energy’. That presentation is available here.
EUREC’s involvement in debates on the EU’s R&D policy for energy will continue with our input to the EC Communication, ‘Energy Union Integrated Strategy on Research, Innovation and Competitiveness’, planned for November 2016. In it we will adjust our focus from the fine detail of Horizon 2020’s implementation to its broader features and the bigger picture beyond the programme.