A strong focus on sustainable solutions and simpler rules: these were the two recurrent themes shared by more than 8000 respondents who collectively completed two surveys on Horizon Europe. These surveys followed an innovative co-design approach.
The first Horizon Europe survey, which ran from 28 June to 4 October 2019, dealt with key strategic orientations for research and innovation support for the programme’s first four years, as well as descriptions of expected impacts, cross-cluster issues and intervention areas to be covered. 6806 responses were received, coming from 99 countries, including all EU Member States which made up 87% of the responses. Just over 50% of the responses came from universities or research organisations, with around 15% from business or industry, 7% from NGOs, 6% from other public authorities, and 3% from international organisations.
Respondents showed broad support for the targeted impacts and priorities referred to in the survey’s orientations document. They stressed the importance of research and innovation to contribute to sustainable solutions, especially for climate related challenges.
The second survey, which ran from 31 July to 4 October, dealt with the implementation strategy of the programme. Here a total of 1550 responses were received, coming from 64 countries, including all EU Members States which made up 88% of the responses. Just over 40% came from universities or research organisations, 35% from business or industry, 9% from public authorities, 6% from NGOs and 2% from international organisations.
Respondents appreciated the simplification measures achieved under Horizon 2020, but highlighted the scope for further improvements (less complex calls, simpler proposal templates, improved evaluation feedback, further improving IT systems and the Funding and Tenders Portal) across the entire project life-cycle.