ERC President: Not much margin in 2028-2034 budget for new research ideas

Maria Leptin, President of the ERC, told MEPs on the budgets committee on 13/10/2025 that there is "not a lot of margin for new things" in the Commission's proposals for Horizon Europe 2028-2034, although she welcomed the plan to increase funding for the ERC, from €16 Bn in the current programme to €31 Bn.

Speaking to MEPs in the European Parliament, she gave, as an example of a new idea that would need extra funding, the ERC Institute, an instrument proposed in the Draghi report. The institute would focus specifically on research universities and institutions, equipping them with the resources required to strengthen and secure their leadership in selected research areas.

She noted that there was a strong correlation between a country’s per-capita GDP investment in research and the number of patents it produces. "We can see this clearly in the cases of China and the United States. China, for example, was not even on the map in the field of biology and now they are world-leading. How did they do it? The offers they make to researchers and the amount of money they spend on…