Division over how to account for research expenses

By Keith Nuthall and Carmen Paun. A political struggle is under way over how universities and research centres should account for expenses in the European Union’s (EU) upcoming Horizon 2020 research programme. With a projected €70 billion budget from 2014-20, the sums available are significant.
On the one side is the European Commission, which in the name of simplification wants to use flat-rate grants that give universities the freedom to spend research grants as they see fit, as long as the promised outcome is achieved. And on the other is the European University Association (EUA), which sees value in the old system – used in the outgoing EU Seventh Framework Programme, or FP7 – where project costs are fully accounted for in detail, and recouped through presentation of receipts and spending records. In debates on the shape of Horizon 2020 at the European parliament, the EUA is backing proposed amendments that would allow universities and research centres attracting Horizon 2020 grants to account for spending using the old system. Read more...