HOW BRITISH UNIVERSITIES HELP TO ENHANCE THE QUALITY OF PROJECT PROPOSALS AND THE SUCCESS RATE OF COUNTRIES IN FPS

The article published in ECHO journal 5-6/2022 analyzes how British universities help to improve the quality of submitted project proposals and how the cooperation of EU countries with the TOP 15 British universities affects their success rate in the FPs.

The article is a reflection on the restlessness in the British research community caused by the still unclear position of the UK in the Horizon Europe programme.

We have shown that there is a relatively small group of top UK universities participating in projects that are allocated 1/5 of the costs of all Horizon 2020 projects. Project proposals prepared in cooperation with these excellent British universities increase the success rate of almost all EU countries. The increase in the success rate and quality of project proposals is particularly evident in the NMS, which is key for these countries, because it is precisely in the context of the NMS that the low success rate of project proposals is often mentioned as a siggnificant barrier to the expansion of their participation in international research and cooperation programmes such as FPs. Needless to say, preparing project proposals in cooperation with TOP 15 HES UK really pays off, as it reduces the cost of preparation invested in projects that do not pass the rigorous expert evaluation introduced in the FPs. For these reasons at least, it seems important to keep British universities and other institutions in a dignified mode for participation in FPs.

Author: Daniel Frank (frank@tc.cz), TC CAS