Big cuts in Horizon 2020 programme
The budget for Horizon 2020, the programme meant to stimulate European research and innovation, is cut by 2.7 billion euros. Jean-Claude Juncker, president of The European Commission (EC), had proposed this at the end of 2014, and now the European Commission has confirmed it.
The money will be used for an economic stimulation package. The programme is targeted for cuts because much of the budget has not been spent yet. In the period between 2014 and 2020, the EC budgeted 80 billion euros for research and innovation, 10 billion for every year adjusted for inflation.
Horizon 2020 will lose 860 million euros in 2016, 871 million euros in 2017 and an additional 479 million in 2018. A big part of the cuts will be felt in the Societal Challenges funding stream. This is the funding stream at which Tilburg University targets most of its research proposals. In the strategic plan, the university wrote that it wants a part in fifty research projects between 2014 and 2017 in the fields Health, care and aging; Labor, social security and entrepreneurship; Social cohesion and security in a connected society; and Sustainability.
