Europe is also taking money from scientific research

This week, EU leaders and Parliament reached an agreement on the 2025 budget. It contains bad news for science: the European Union is reducing the budget for the Horizon Europe programme for research and innovation.

The European Research Council, from which Dutch scientists receive a relatively large amount of money, will also have to make do with less. The ERC is part of the Horizon programme.

Against Draghi's advice
Horizon will receive 130 million euros less than it does now. That is a small decrease (one percent) on an annual budget of almost 13 billion euros, but also a striking one as Brussels desires to invest more in research.

The cutbacks were already initiated a year ago. At the time, government leaders wanted to free up more money for defence, so they cut 2.1 billion euros from the Horizon Europe budget for the next three years.

But then hopes in Brussels increased that the cutbacks would be reversed. Ursula von der Leyen was re-elected as EU president in July with the promise that she would champion scientific research and innovation. In September, former European Central Bank President Mario Draghi also proposed spending much more on the sector.

The so-called Draghi report made headlines. In it, he argues that if Europe wants to remain economically relevant, it needs to add 100 billion euros to this budget annually. This money should not only come from companies and national governments but also from the European budget. Draghi would like to double the amount of money for the European Research Council, for example.

More money for Erasmus+
The European Parliament was committed to increasing its budget for Horizon, but government leaders came up with the proposal to cut almost half a billion euros. After the negotiations, they have managed to reduce to cut to 130 million, which is only a small part of the 2.1 billion euros that Horizon will have to hand in over the next three years. If the plans do not fundamentally change, the programme will have to hand in almost another billion per year in 2026 and 2027.

The 2025 budget does reserve some additional money for Erasmus+, a programme through which the EU stimulates studies or internships abroad. It is also used to support teachers interested in gaining experience abroad. Erasmus+ is getting 180 million more.