Canada needs more funds for EU collaborations

Canadian researchers and companies have an unprecedented opportunity to tap into billions of dollars in collaborative projects with their European counterparts, but concerns over a dearth of funding and lack of coordination between funders in this country means many of these opportunities could be lost.

The issue was raised at a recent Canadian Science Policy Conference session looking at Canada's participation in Europe's new Horizon 2020 funding program for research and innovation.

"The real problem is how do you align funding systems and how do you get the granting agencies to talk to each other," asked David Moorman, senior programs planning officer with the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI).

Running from January 2014 until 2020 with a budget of just over €70 billion (CAD $92 billion), Horizon 2020 succeeds the current funding program, FP7, due to finish at the end 2013. The first call for proposals was launched December 17 and international partners are expected to bring matching funding and/or resources to each project consortium. Canadian researchers may receive Horizon 2020 funding if they bring expertise that cannot be found within the EU.

Canada has been the EU framework's second largest research collaborator, just slightly behind the US.That close relationship led to the launch in October of a new Canada-EU consortium – called ERA-CAN Plus – to identify potential partnerships and funding sources. One of the Canadian partners in the consortium agrees cooperation between funders is essential, but also called for increased funding for the granting agencies and CFI directed towards international collaborations.

"Other countries have mechanisms where they can match commitments by the Europeans, Brazilians or Indians but not in Canada and at the scale needed to accelerate these kinds of relationships," said AUCC president Paul Davidson. He's hopeful that will change with the next two federal budgets, which are widely expected to boost funding for R&D after years of fiscal restraint. "We're moving into a different kind of fiscal circumstance over the next 18 months or so, so we're doing the work now to think about what are the additional policy tools that could advance this type of effort."

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