British Academy and ALLEA raise Horizon 2020 concerns

The British Academy and the All European Academies (ALLEA), representing academies throughout Europe, have raised their deep concerns to European Commissioner for Research, Innovation and Science - Máire Geoghegan-Quinn - on the current plans and implementation of Horizon 2020 for the social sciences and humanities.

The Academy and ALLEA have jointly recommended three urgent changes to the current draft programme:

• A budget for the humanities and social sciences that reflects the ‘significant space’ the Commissioner has previously promised; 


• a funding structure that covers small, medium and large-scale grant sizes so that the humanities and social science communities are not alienated by very low chances of success; 


• and structures to embed interdisciplinarity as well as the humanities and social sciences such as a cross-cutting Advisory Group to monitor and ensure ‘embedding’ of the humanities and social sciences.

Read the joint letter to Commissioner Máire Geoghegan-Quinn here. A similar letter was sent to the Times Higher Education. You can read the letter here.