From: Danuta Wasserman
Sent: Friday, September 13, 2013 08:56 AM
To: undisclosed recipients
Subject: Horizon 2020
Dear Patrice & Julian,
As you are going to represent the EPA in the ROAMER Stakeholder Advisory Board Meeting on the 26th of November in Barcelona, I would like to give you the following information about Horizon 2020, so that perhaps you can discuss it with colleagues during the meeting.
It has been proposed to establish within Horizon 2020 a number of “networks of centres of excellence”. It is not clear how these networks will be formed or what their role will be in the application process for EU funded projects. It has however been said in several meetings that these “networks” will have primary access to EU funds in Horizon 2020 - a perception that Istvan Bitter also had and conveyed during the Board Meeting in London.
It is possible that these “networks of excellence” will replace the Research consortia which were, up until now, the main applicants in the EU’s VII Framework. For example, it’s possible that a network of centers would be established (with unknown criteria) in psychiatry and that afterwards, only centers in this network will have the opportunity to coordinate research projects.
A major risk in this change is that it will not be possible any longer for other research centres to apply for EU research funds if they are not part of one of these “networks of excellence”. This would contradict what was one of the main principles of the EU VII Framework Programme, which is that anyone who is a EU citizen could send in a grant application, as a member of an institution or even as a private individual. If this will not be the case for Horizon 2020 it could be a serious limitation for competition in research.
Please note that this issue is likely to be strongly debated and hopefully no firm resolutions will be made. I cannot see any clear indication in the EU documents released until now on the Horizon 2020 website, regarding any statement about any kind of "network of centres of excellence", but we in the EPA need to act now as when a decision will be taken there will be no room for manoeuvre.
I urge all Board Members to lobby through their various channels on this issue.
With kind regards,
Danuta
Prof. Danuta Wasserman
National Centre for Suicide Research and Prevention of Mental lll-Health (NASP)
Karolinska Institutet/LIME
WHO Collaborating Centre for Research, Methods Development and Training in Suicide Prevention.