Research fund risk in Europe budget wrangle

The European Parliament last week voted overwhelmingly to back European Commission plans to double the Seventh Framework Programme's budget. The move came amid appeals from Europe's universities to European Union leaders to safeguard research funding in the face of a threatened cut of up to 40 per cent.

The issue has become tied up in the EU budget row dominating this week's summit. FP7 funds are linked to the overall EU budget, which the European Commission has set at 1.24 per cent of gross domestic product but which many countries want to cut to 1 per cent.

The European Parliament's research committee expressed "disappointment" at cuts proposed by Luxembourg to the e67.8 billion (£4.5 billion) mooted by the Commission in April. Giles Chichester, the committee's chairman, said the proposal "implied a substantial reduction (of the order of 30 per cent or more) in the budgetary resources compared to those proposed by the European Commission".

Mr Chichester said: "It's a pity that we're still stuck in this antediluvian model of supporting agriculture, a distinctly minority sector, at the expense of research, which is relevant to the future."

The European University Association joined the European Research Advisory Board in warning that the possible "severe" cuts would undermine the prospects of achieving the Lisbon Objectives on research funding.

EUA president Georg Winckler said: "These objectives have fully recognised that sustained economic growth and employment cannot be achieved without substantially enhanced investment in European research."