There is a widening consensus that research and innovation (R&I) funding in Europe is not working the way it is supposed to. The growing competition for R&I project grants overburdens the R&I system, generates bursts of activity leading to unsustainable results, and fuels the much-maligned growth of precarious labour.
This trend needs to be turned around, and not by means of the usual patchwork but through a fundamental rethinking of the system for R&I funding. We believe that a very promising avenue for such a turnaround would be a shift from project-based funding to continuous funding for R&I networks.
Such a shift would have significant benefits, as it would drastically reduce the time spent on writing and reviewing grant proposals, make results much more sustainable, and largely eliminate precarious labour. It is not a catch-all solution that would replace all R&I funding, but would be a valuable addition to the current funding ecosystem. It could quite easily be tried out as a pilot and scaled up if proven successful.
Not all R&I is a competitive project
National and EU funding schemes differ in many ways except one: almost all funding is allocated based on competitive, project-based R&I grants. We want to challenge the assumption that competitive projects are the best format for R&I funding.
First, competition for projects puts a significant strain in terms of hidden labour on the R&I ecosystem. Researchers and innovators are spending countless hours on coordinating, planning, writing and reviewing lengthy and intricate R&I project proposals, which more often than not turn out to be unsuccessful. This hidden time and effort could very well be reallocated to doing actual R&I. It’s not a controversial claim to state that multiple strategic R&I institutes could be funded in Europe solely based on this hidden labour.
Second, current funding streams oftentimes lead to unsustainable and abandoned project results, archived on project websites that nobody reads and maintains. For project-based funding, once the funding stops and no follow-up funding is secured, researchers and innovators move on to other projects and priorities. This leads to a large ‘graveyard’ of abandoned project results, that in a different funding paradigm could stay alive and lead to promising and sustainable follow-up.
Third, R&I funding unintentionally incentivises and fuels the significant problem of precarious labour. Project funding provides temporary room for employment, for instance in the form of 2- or 3-year postdoc positions and parttime, limited positions at civil society organisations. Oftentimes these positions come with a mobility requirement, forcing people to move their livelihoods and families without solid future career prospects.
From project- to continuity funding
The problem is clear. But how can European and national R&I funding be turned around? We believe that this can be achieved by a gradual shift from project-based to continuous R&I funding.
In a nutshell, continuity funding is based on three principles:
- Funds are allocated based on one-time R&I proposals for a research network, including different participants who are early-career researchers and innovators, in an international consortium. These proposals combine an overall research theme with individual CVs and research projects, so that both the network as a whole and the quality of the individual researchers and innovators is considered.
- Once established, funding for the network is provided on a yearly, inflation-adjusted basis, and in principle never expires. Progress is regularly but non-intensively reviewed to ensure quality control (e.g., every 2 years).
- Renewal happens because participants transition to unlimited contracts (e.g., gaining a professorship), which makes them leave a network, making room for new participants. Moreover, networks may naturally decay as themes become less relevant, a process which can be incentivised through policy. Importantly, though, renewal does not affect the careers of the individual participants.
To guarantee the right incentives within this funding scheme, rules need to be established for institutions and for the individual participants. For instance, a rule could be that participants cannot switch institutions without leaving the research network. For institutions, a rule could be that salaries are in part linked to a growing reserve fund for the individual participant, which can only be accessed once an unlimited position is offered.
This new funding scheme has several benefits that directly address the problems of current R&I funding.
First, by making funding continuous and enabling renewal through natural replacement, the burden on the R&I ecosystem as a whole is significantly reduced. Although the proposal preparation and reviewing require quite some resources at the start, once established a research network does not face such costs again.
Second, the continuous nature of the research networks ensures that R&I results are much more sustainable and can enjoy sustained support and maintenance, where appropriate. This will greatly benefit the maturity and sustainability of R&I in Europe, while mitigating the problem of waste in the form of projects that end up in the ‘graveyard.’
Third, while the review of individual profiles and quality control avoids free-riding, the R&I careers enabled by continuity funding largely eliminate precarious labour. Participants enjoy a continuous career development at their institutions, including a pathway of growth towards an unlimited contract.
What should Europe do?
Continuity funding clearly fills a gap in European and national R&I funding schemes and its benefits can have a very positive reverberation throughout the R&I ecosystem. Yet, how do we get there?
Continuity funding is not a ‘one size fits all’ solution. For some instances of R&I, especially individual projects for scientific excellence (e.g., ERC projects), the project format might remain the best fit. Hence, continuity funding should initially be regarded as a valuable addition to rather than a replacement of current R&I funding schemes.
As a first step, we recommend that the European framework programme starts with a pilot of a limited number of R&I networks based on different thematic calls. For instance, around 20 networks could be funded which would require an initial investment of 20-30 million Euro on a yearly basis. If the pilot turns out to be unsuccessful, the networks could simply be eliminated by cancelling renewal processes, which would not affect the careers of the individual participants.
As a second step, if positively evaluated, we recommend that the pilot should be extended into an established new pillar in the Horizon Europe funding and could be adopted in national funding schemes as well. This would take some years to be done, but it would have the potential to realise the much needed turnaround in European R&I funding.
