Excellence in research, innovation and education The universities recommendations for an efficient and ambitious FP9 #H2020impact Thursday, November 9, 2017 EUA 2017 1
Excellence in research, innovation and education The universities recommendations for an efficient and ambitious FP9 Martine Rahierǀ EUA Vice-President #H2020impact @EUAtweets Thursday, November 9, 2017 EUA 2017 2
Excellence in research, innovation and education The universities recommendations for efficient and ambitious FP9 The European National Rectors Conferences and Universities call for a Framework Programme capable of strongly supporting both research and innovation enabling the return on investment for society at large Thursday, November 9, 2017 EUA 2017 3
Excellence in research, innovation and education The universities recommendations for efficient and ambitious FP9 Long-term funding instruments for R&I Efficiency, openness & attractiveness Increase funding for FP9 through strategic Multiannual Financial Framework reallocation Avoid excessive low success rates leading to demotivation, closed partnerships & inhibiting emergence of excellence Ensure sustainability of R&I funding & equitable access to beneficiaries: use grants instead of financial instruments Improve FP efficiency & simplify radically: broader acceptance of national & institutional accounting practices Introduce measures for an open and more competitive environment in the scientific publishing market Thursday, November 9, 2017 EUA 2017 4
Excellence in research, innovation and education The universities recommendations for efficient and ambitious FP9 More collaboration to reduce discrepancies across EU R&D investment gap within EU has a negative impact on the participation and use of resources in Horizon 2020 and leads to further geographical imbalances Provide sufficient funding for excellent, collaborative and multidisciplinary teams from across Europe, increasing the average country success rates Allocate a greater share of ESIF post-2020 to capacity building, career development and mobility of researchers Base ESIF post-2020 on clear, efficient and simple rules aligned to the next FP on a strategic and practical level Thursday, November 9, 2017 EUA 2017 5
Excellence in research, innovation and education The universities recommendations for efficient and ambitious FP9 Stronger alignment of education, research & innovation policies Need for stronger links between education and research to develop human talent, the fundamental driver of innovation Broaden and clarify the concept of impact : societal, cultural and long-term impact need to be considered in addition to purely numerical measures Focus indicators on the innovation potential of research, rather than on TRLs, to facilitate integration of Arts, Humanities, Social Sciences and STEM, between and within them Introduce into EU grant agreements the possibility to link research to education through sharing research results with students Thursday, November 9, 2017 EUA 2017 6
Excellence in research, innovation and education The universities recommendations for efficient and ambitious FP9 From Vision to Action : In an overarching context of enhancing links between research, innovation and education, our focus is on 3 key areas: Long-term funding instruments for R&I More collaboration to reduce discrepancies across EU Stronger alignment of education, research & innovation policies Thursday, November 9, 2017 EUA 2017 7
Excellence in research, innovation and education Reinforcing collaborations and minimising discrepancies across the EU Marcin Pałys Rector of the University of Warsaw, Poland Thursday, November 9, 2017 EUA 2017 8
Reinforcing collaborations and minimising discrepancies across the EU Marcin Pałys rector, University of Warsaw http://en.uw.edu.pl
UW FACTS AND FIGURES Comprehensive university founded in 1816 44 400 students, 3 200 doctoral students, 7 250 employees (2 500 long-term international students + 1 900 exchange students) 21 faculties and 30 academic/research units 330 M budget (including ca. 100 M research budget) University graduates have won 5 Nobel Prize awards
EU RESEARCH PROGRAMMES PARTICIPATION ca. 50 projects from the Horizon 2020, SESAR Joint Undertaking (co-financed from H2020), COSME (Framework Programme for Research and Innovation) researchers from UW have received 13 ERC grants (from 27 grants in all Polish institutions) participation as an institutional partner in 2 projects financed by the ERC (coordinated by the Polish Academy of Sciences and the University of Oxford). average success rate in H2020 16% (EU average 11%)
PI: what helps? (1) Truly excellent research ideas Practical knowlegde of EC rules for projects applications, assessment and execution: experience as evaluator of EU projects experience as a partner in an European project (then Work Package leader) in coordination projects - start from non-research grants (CSA)
PI: what helps? (2) Being trustworthy for foreign research partners participation in EC public consultations/proposers days good previous contacts with partners Being wanted by research partners for successful networks and consortia, involvement of new members is not a priority new members seen as source of risk, unless gains clearly prevail only experienced partners with good records on project management can become coordinators
Institution: what helps? Having very professional and experienced support for: proposal preparation, language edition, project management and financial administration Having sufficient financial reserves for: project continuity coverage of financial risks (e.g., exchange rate variations) coverage of costs turning non-eligible as a result of audits
What doesn't help? "closed clubs": without reputation - hard to get in; without being in - hard to have reputation relatively low funding rate for excellent projects remuneration rules (limit to institution's average salaries) in low-wages member states cause severe problems: brain drain: PI moving with the grant to high-wages member state gains an important personal advantage no influx: for researchers from EU15 having a grant in EU13 is financially prohibitively unattractive few grants = few experienced managers and administrative supporters; their scarcity means salary must be well above average
What doesn't help? rules are still complex management and administration constitute big part of the budget risk of different interpretation of rules by auditing bodies PIs and host institutions try to offset the risks on each other imbalance: supporting excellent careers but not building excellent institutions SSH: no follow-up of excellent results after the end of the grant excellence of researchers doesn't accumulate in institutions
What to recommend? Still work on simplifcation of rules change remuneration rules and introduce common minimum level of remuneration (similarly to MCA) support building up of "critical mass" of experienced partners in EU13, prevent forming "closed clubs" take into account development of institutions, not only individual scientists
UNIVERSITY OF WARSAW Krakowskie Przedmieście 26/28 Warsaw Poland http://en.uw.edu.pl
Excellence in research, innovation and education Unlocking Europe s universities research potential: H2020 reality and FP9 expectations Notes based on oral presentation Anke Zerm Head of Research Support Office, Leuphana University of Lüneburg, Germany Thursday, November 9, 2017 EUA 2017 19
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Situation topic: growing competition for EU collaborative research funding and extremely low success rates perspective: smaller and medium-sized universities situation: growing numbers of proposals are rejected; even highly evaluated proposals are not funded How do universities cope with the situation? How is the situation looking at individual universities or individual researchers within their settings? 21
Researchers: fundamental feature of European research is the inclusive ability to jointly conduct research with different countries, in different cultures, with different institutions significant increase of common European research projects is widely seen as a key factor for innovation due to the lack of sufficient basic funding research is dependent on third party funding today s researchers are embedded in a reputational system and have to behave asacademic entrepreneurs proposal development with many actors in different countries and settings is time consuming researchers cannot afford spending time on probably unsuccessful proposals H2020 becomes of lower interest if funding alternatives with higher success rates are available 22
Universities (1): universities differ substantially from other H2020 participating institutions like e.g. research organizations and enterprises H2020 collaborative projects funds are an important funding source and a performance indicator for international research entailing additional national funding temporary H2020 projects are embedded in universities longterm structures like research groups or clusters and longterm funding strategies universities extensively provide internal money for building up clusters, preparing proposals, attracting excellent scientists as well as developping internal staff capacities internal professional expertise also encompasses issues like e.g. ethics, open access/science, research data management, IPR and fosters significantly research activities 23
Universities (2): responses to negative evaluation results resubmission use of internal funds (possible in large universities) giving up role as proposal coordinator participation in strong consortia with successful coordinating institutions ( flagship universities, closed shops ) concentration on person-oriented schemes (ERC) because funds are higher and proposal effort and future admin burden are lower redesign the research idea in order to address different international/national private or public funders Intellectual flexibility, individual energy and internal support are needed! 24
EU Commission: Seal of Excellence (SoE) basically appreciated focussed mainly on one-beneficiary-above-quality-projects only few countries offer access to national schemes shift from uniform H2020 funding procedure to myriad of national funding programmes i.e. applicant has to face more or less complicated national funding rules SoE flagged proposals are often not prioritized at national level culture of respecting H2020 evaluation results ismissing 25
Challenges underfunding of excellent proposals has tobe solved at the level where it is caused: at the European level different funding schemes (particularly H2020 and Structural Funds) have tobe aligned in order tosupport high quality proposals new set of guiding logics and principles for current programmes (on education, research and regional development) is needed role of large private foundations (e.g. VolkswagenFoundation, Wellcome Trust) has to be discussed 26
Excellence in research, innovation and education A stronger alignment of EU policies for education, research and innovation Lokesh Joshi Vice-President for Research of NUI Galway, Ireland Thursday, November 9, 2017 EUA 2017 27
Prof. Lokesh Joshi National University of Ireland Galway, IRELAND
Education, Research & Innovation at National University of Ireland Galway
Education, Research & Innovation at National University of Ireland Galway Social Science Humanities Biomedical Technologies Society Engineering Data Science Business Public Policy Law
Education, Research & Innovation at National University of Ireland Galway Technology Transfer Research IP Awareness IP Mining IP Roadshows Research agreements Collaboration agreements Support funding proposals Disclosure Landscaping Confidentiality agreements Invention Disclosures Technical evaluation Commercial evaluation Commercial strategy Protection Portfolio management Patent search Patent strategy Patent budget Patent filing Office actions Education Impact Industries Jobs Economic benefit Societal benefit New products Reputation Start-up Seed Funding Shareholder agreements VC funding Accelerator Incubator Policy Licensing Technology marketing Negotiations Options License Assignments Valuation
Education, Research & Innovation at National University of Ireland Galway We are committed to social contribution and value to humanity We are training the next generation of researchers, thought leaders and entrepreneurs We nurture entrepreneurial thinking and support industry / academia engagement in the region Research and Innovation
Education, Research & Innovation at National University of Ireland Galway People are our most precious assets We are engaged with industry to stay informed of its needs. We offer educational and training programmes to our students and researchers in preparing them for the 21 st century challenges and opportunities Research and Innovation
Education, Research & Innovation at National University of Ireland Galway Embo Medical Limited acquired by a subsidiary of Bard CR Inc for contingent consideration of $43 million
Education, Research & Innovation at National University of Ireland Galway Committed to EU excellence European Capital of Culture 2020 Best Overall Micro City in Europe Significant Strengths in: MedTech, ICT, marine, energy, environment, creative arts Globally connected Success of NUI Galway has been possible because of the support from European Union Research and Innovation
Education, Research & Innovation at National University of Ireland Galway Framework Programme (FP) 9
Current Landscape Global Challenges Employment, skills and human capital Sustainable Development & Climate Change Physical/Cyber Infrastructural Threats and many more in many cases interconnected
Critical Role of Universities Education, research and innovation are central to addressing challenges Universities are key partners/stakeholders in supporting progress and tackling common goals Key role in promoting research-led education for benefit wider society Expertise/skillset both fundamental research that provides the knowledge base for future innovations in addition to solve critical current problems
Potential impact FP9 can play Legitimisation of the collaborative approach of the EU Real impact on the everyday lives of EU citizens and the challenges they face Enabler for new innovations and job growth Unique platform for fostering international collaborations with an impact beyond Science domain Impact on global challenges facing the world Educating the next generation EU citizens/leaders
How to maximise this impact Crucial need for sustainable funding Synergies with other programmes An inclusive view of Education, Research & Innovation Keep EU together What is our legacy to the next generation of EU and global citizens? What is our contribution to a sustainable planet?
Thank you for your attention Lokesh.Joshi@NUIGalway.ie +353-860402242 16