European research universities call for more ambitious EU budget
More than 800 universities have called on the European Council to come to be more visionary in its ambitions for European research, innovation and education. They believe the current budget to be insufficient.
The European universities say they cannot agree with the budget that the European Council (the heads of state or goverment of the EU) wants to allocate to research, innovation and education in the period 2021-2027. The recent proposal of President of the European Council, Charles Michel, would cut 5 billion euros from Horizon Europe, among other things. This would lose the European universities part of their budget, they write.
Kurt Deketelaere, Secretary-General of the League of European Research Universities (LERU), of which Leiden University is a member, spoke out on LERU’s behalf against the budget proposals. According to him, these are a ‘complete disgrace’ for European research and do not match the ambitions previously expressed by the EU to make European society more digital and climate-friendly.