What changes are needed in EU funding for the geosciences? Complete the survey!
29 March 2018
Horizon 2020 is an EU funding programme that is allocating almost €80 billion to research and innovation over 7 years (from 2014 to 2020). This money is spread between scientific and technology programmes and provides sustainable growth and jobs that focus on excellent science, industrial leadership and tackling societal challenges. The Horizon 2020 Programme primarily aims to produce world-class science, remove barriers to innovation and encourage private and public-sector collaboration.
Despite running until the end of 2020, the Horizon 2020 Programme is already being evaluated by policymakers to identify its strengths and weaknesses. These evaluations will then be used to steer the next EU funding framework guidelines, distribution, application process, etc.
To gather information about Horizon 2020, the European Geosciences Union (EGU) and the European Federation of Geologists (EFG) are collectively conducting a survey within the geoscientific community to assess the perceived success of Horizon 2020 and identify any areas that need to be improved. While there are a number of different overarching studies on Horizon 2020, the EGU / EFG evaluation will exclusively focus on the geoscience community. The information collected through this survey will be analysed and summarised. It will then be circulated to relevant policymakers, aiming to outline issues within the funding programme that geoscientists feel need to be amended on or continued. A Dinner Debate, hosted by the EGU and EFG in Brussels in September 2018, will further highlight the areas within the EU Framework Programmes that geoscientists feel are most important.
Due to its thematic diversity and its size, the geoscience community has a significant representation within European research programmes. The opinion of the researchers who have taken part in Horizon 2020 or who plan to take part in the next EU funding framework (which will run from 2021 until 2028) is therefore valuable.
You can provide feedback on your experience with the Horizon 2020 Programme and help us share the voice of the geoscience community with policymakers by completing the Horizon 2020 Geoscience Survey until 15 May 2018. Survey responses can be given based on your experience working with one or more of the Horizon 2020 projects, the Horizon 2020 application process or with the allocation of funding offered. The survey should take you between 5 and 15 minutes and all of the questions are optional. All respondents will remain anonymous.
For further information about this survey or the Horizon 2020 Programme, please email the EGU Policy Officer, Chloe Hill at policy@egu.eu or to EFG Executive Director, Isabel Fernandez at isabel.fernadez@eurogeologists.eu.
* * * Complete the survey now at https://www.egu.eu/H2020survey/. * * *