Horizon Europe evaluation: Submission to the European Commission’s High Level Group

Horizon Europe evaluation: Submission to the European Commission’s High Level Group

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Our contribution to the High Level Group advising the European Commission on the interim evaluation of Horizon Europe FP9 and with proposals for future programming | 26 July 2024

Major challenges to be addressed

  • Short-sightedness
    • Prioritise future-focused topics through systematic foresight; 
    • Involve those who have the most at stake – youth and marginalised groups;
    • Spread investments across the entire innovation cycle.
  • Uni-disciplinary research reinforces silos and blindspots in science, technology, and policy 
    • Promote multidisciplinary, networked research, also with greater collaboration among existing EU institutions;
    • Enable research champions to create internal and inter-institutional processes to inform and incorporate research findings into policy.
  • Reactionary policy is increasingly insufficient for safeguarding democracy and society vis-a-vis accelerating technological research and innovation (R&I) 
    • Horizon to be safe and democratic by design, with clear objectives and impacts for safety, accessibility, equity, and fairness.
  • Emergence of new forms of dual-use in technology and R&I 
    • Enhance foresight, rules, restrictions, and coordination around dual-use R&I;
    • Prioritise research on emerging technology with dual-use potential.

Major successes and roadblock/threats for success

  • Success: Widening participation, with more even distribution of funds across Europe and strategic partner countries
    • Roadblocks: 
      • Lack of resources for strategic alignment with EU policy priorities; 
      • Lack of support for scaling successful R&I initiatives;
      • Despite improvements, diversity among R&I actors is still lacking.
  • Success: World’s most ambitious public investment into R&I to date
    • Roadblocks:
      • Economic competitiveness as a political priority could eclipse Horizon;
      • Public (mis)trust in scientific production, such as science scepticism;
      • Lack of support for feedback into EU political priorities, resulting in disconnect between R&I and policy.

Sub-programmes to be preserved, strengthened, or altered

  • Pillar 2: Global Challenges and European Industrial Competitiveness
    • Climate, Energy and Mobility
      • Separate climate and energy fund parameters to avoid overshadowing other important categories;
      • Adopt globally cooperative, interdisciplinary, and science-diplomacy oriented research toward a comprehensive climate security strategy;
      • Prioritise research into science of solar radiation modification to slow or prevent tipping points, ecosystem collapse, and human casualty;
      • Seek scientific, public understandings of climate intervention research, testing, and potential deployment.
    • Digital, Industry and Space 
      • Advance policy-relevant R&I on disruptive technologies;
      • Prioritise networked research toward a science of safe AI;
      • Explore possibilities to bound the societal harm that a general-purpose AI agent could cause, with certainty or calculated likelihood;
      • Examine how oversight can be scaled for increasingly powerful agents.
    • Health
      • Prioritise mixed-method research on source-agnostic pandemic preparedness;
      • Prioritise research into pathogen-agnostic diagnostic capacity and effective countermeasures;
      • Monitor dual-use classifications in light of emerging technologies. 
  • Pillar 3: Innovative Europe
    • European Innovation Council (EIC): Invest in a wider mandate and enable more autonomy, sharpening its focus on public interest.
  • Widening Participation and Strengthening the European Research Area
    • Prioritise interdisciplinary research and early academic involvement in R&I to foster collaborative problem-solving across disciplines and with society;
    • Ensure transparency, public participation, and accountability in programming;
    • Enable funding for higher-risk/-reward technology areas, modelling the U.S. DARPA approach but focused on non-defense sectors, with KPIs adapted to tolerate a high failure rate.

Catalyst and innovations to overcome roadblocks

Roadblocks Catalyst and innovations to overcome roadblocks
R&I investment spread too thinly Invest more in core funding for labs, institutions, and networks, and less for individual projects.
Lack of resources for strategic alignment with EU policy priorities Bring foresight capabilities of the EUISS and EEAS, and expertise of EESA, JRC, and EDA to bear in prioritising Horizon R&I;

Ensure that Horizon informs EU defence, infrastructure, trade, and migration policies, enhancing EU strategic capability to anticipate and respond to likely developments.
Lack of support for scaling successful R&I initiatives Invest in the growth and development of the EIC, with capacity for market and societal data analytics and strategic foresight;

Enhance EIC focus on R&I costs and benefits, with feedback loops to EU investment and policy.
Risk-averse R&I thwarts EU capability to respond to pressing global challenges Harness investment logic away from piecemeal, grant-based investment; 

Raise threshold for risk and prioritise R&I into high-risk, high-potential programme areas.
Although it’s improved since previous Horizon funds, a lack of diversity along gender, racial, and socio-economic lines persists Invest in policy-relevant researchers of the future, for example: 

  • train and reward a diverse range of junior researchers; 
  • fund multi-year, transdisciplinary initiatives; 
  • fund interdisciplinary summer schools for mixed-level groups of researchers and policy practitioners.

Invest in national contact points to assist diverse applicants in overcoming application challenges and navigating funding options.
Economic competitiveness as a political priority could eclipse Horizon programming and priorities Reframe and reprioritise Horizon as investment into competitive R&I to reinforce sustainable economic competitiveness.
Public (mis)trust in scientific production Increase information value and reliability by

  • improving structures and practices for replicability; 
  • increasing pre-registration of studies; and  
  • decoupling publication decisions from study outcomes.
Lack of support for feedback into EU political priorities, resulting in disconnect between R&I and EU investment and policy Prioritise and publicise narratives around R&I people, processes, and outcomes as pillars of a sustainable European economy and competitiveness.

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