UPF research in Europe: excellent results in the Horizon 2020 programme

Source: comms UPF

Now the EU’s Horizon 2020 programme has come to an end, the University has obtained a total of 85.6 million euros of funding spread across 176 projects, that is to say, an increase of 16 and 24%, respectively compared to the previous FP7 programme. UPF, which has stood out for excellent science, has achieved a success rate (applications over projects obtained) of 18%, rather higher than the mean for Catalonia, Spain and Europe.

The results of Pompeu Fabra University within Horizon 2020, the European Union’s research and innovation framework programme between 2014 and 2020, are most positive. After evaluating the various projects, UPF has become a consolidated institution of reference in the programme, especially in the field of excellent science, and EU funds continue to be the University’s main source of research funding.

The Horizon 2020 programme, endowed with a total budget of 76,880 million euros for all EU member states, integrated all phases of research and innovation, from knowledge generation to activities nearer the market. It was structured around three major pillars: Excellent Science (pillar I), Industrial Leadership (pillar II), and Societal Challenges (pillar III), in addition to a section of cross-disciplinary projects.

UPF’s results in Horizon 2020 make it the fourth institution for harnessing funds from the European Union in Catalonia and seventh in Spain

In global figures (data from July 2021), UPF has obtained 85.6 million euros and 176 funded projects, representing, respectively, an increase of 16 and 24% compared to the previous framework programme, FP7 (2007-2013), which marked the start of UPF’s transition towards a research-intensive university. UPF’s results in Horizon 2020 make it the fourth institution for harnessing funds from the European Union in Catalonia and seventh in Spain.

Enric Vallduví, vice-rector for Research at the University, states that “the results achieved are very good and, more so if we take the size of the institutions into account: UPF is rather small compared to the others, and that makes the results, in relative terms, even more praiseworthy”.

• Success rate and weight of European funding of UPF compared to the university system

The 176 University projects to have received funding (99 in consortia, 17 of which as coordinator, and the remaining 77 individually) have arisen from a total of 977 applications submitted, that is a success rate of 18.01%, quite a bit higher than the mean for the European Union (11.97%), Spain (12.86%) and Catalonia (13.70%).

Enric Vallduví: “Every application generated represents an important investment of time and effort and so a higher-than-average success rate involves a saving for all who participate”

Vice-rector Vallduví stresses the importance of this figure, and what it means in terms of efficiency for the institution: “Every application generated represents an important investment of time and effort and so a higher-than-average success rate involves a saving for all who participate”.

If we focus on the funding obtained by UPF in relation to the university system, the figures are also most positive. State-wide, Pompeu Fabra has achieved 6.5% of all of the funding from European funds (while UPF teaching staff accounts for close to 1% of the entire Spanish university system). In Catalonia, the percentage of funding obtained by UPF over the university system as a whole reaches 21.43%.

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