Zaharieva says European universities alliances underuse collective potential in Horizon Europe calls

Ekaterina Zaharieva noted that European universities alliances are not leveraging their formal structures to apply collectively to Horizon Europe funding calls, instead forming ad hoc consortia.

The commissioner for Startups, Research and Innovation said to the EP Culture and Education committee (CULT) on 05/05/2026: "Universities who are part of the alliances have received close to €40 billion since FP7. They are one of the main beneficiaries of Horizon Europe. But, even in some of the calls that we have dedicated only to universities and alliances of universities, there are no alliances that actually applied as alliances in this programme."

In her view, allocating a fixed-term budget or a top-up from Horizon Europe to the alliances would undermine Horizon’s priority of excellence. She said that half of the universities opposed a ring-fenced budget or top-up beyond their current Erasmus+ funding, arguing that Horizon Europe is designed to fund research projects, not organisational structures like university alliances. "If we want to keep excellence as the number one principle in…