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| Signatures including commentsRefine your search Show all comments (sorted by date) Show all comments (sorted by length) Show regional comments: Comments from Germany249 comments. (Note: Some comments are not made public accessible.) 19 Feb 10:40 Germany . Dieter Müller In the last years I have seen too much letters saying to reduce bureaucracy the following new rules/laws are established .... 24 Mar 13:51 Germany Adam Opel Jens Hüser EU fundings are to complex compared to local funding. To enhence the european R&D exchange that needs to be corrected. Local process can serve as benchmark. 23 Mar 12:13 Germany Albert-Ludwigs-University Mareike Wurdack Since Id like to find my professional future in Europe I have participated in workshops preparing young scientists for the framework application process. I found the structures overly complicated and discouraging. 18 Mar 11:38 Germany Alfred Wegener Institute Sebastien Bertrand European scientific research would strongly benefit from simplified administrative procedures. The complicated adminstrative procedures of the EU are time and energy consuming and prevent scientists from focusing on important scientific issues. 19 Feb 09:56 Germany Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research Hartmut Hellmer Every minute spent for administration is an hour lost for science. 22 Mar 11:28 Germany Alfred-Wegener-Institute Roland Neuber A minute spent on administration is an hour lost for science, as said by Hartmut Hellmer, AWI 10 Mar 13:26 Germany ALROUND e.V. - Association of Aerospace-oriented SMEs in Germany Jens Janke The rules and administration processes of FP7 put handicaps on SMEs and discourage them to participate in cooperative RTD projects. Lots of innovative ideas are not yet being used for the benefit of the EC. SMEs expect procedures corresponding to their resources (admin, financial, personnel, etc.). 19 Mar 15:20 Germany ARTS DS Dieter Schmitt Especially in FP7, the administrative burden from the EC services has become a monster. You get no single person responsible for anything! A lot of services from the EC are aölways involved and time is passsing by before any decision or answer is taken. The rules for financing, especially the Overhead is a new masterpiece of incompetence and sophistication! 14 Jun 15:39 Germany BAM Federal Institute for Materials Research and Testing Ute Kalbe Administrative requirements in the framework of EU funded projects especially in case of coordination have grown over the years and consume a lot of resources which meanwhile can hardly be covered even by large organisations. In relation to the effort for writing proposals the chance for actual funding is rather small. 17 Feb 11:13 Germany BiK-F Bob OHara When the amount of red tape is so bad that it stops people from applying for EU money, something needs to be done. Good researchers will go somewhere else to get funding. 4 Mar 09:00 Germany Carl von Ossietzky Universität Oldenburg Hans Gerd Nothwang I fully agree that there is a overregulation in the projects managed by the EU, which costs a tremendous amount of time to deal with. Furthermore, it prevents many people from applying 30 Apr 20:48 Germany Chair of Theoretical Chemistry Lorenz Cederbaum If administration is heavy, there is much less time for research left. Obviously, this is counter productive because the money granted is for research and not for administration. Or did I misunderstand something and the money granted is for administartion and research is only an excuse ? 11 Mar 22:36 Germany Clausthal University Gabriel Zachmann Especially the amount of paper work should be reduced, both for the proposal and for the deliverables. 4 May 16:15 Germany Commission on Process safety Christian Jochum Complicated rules divert the focus of funding to projects fitting into these rules rather than to those which may lead to more sustainable results 20 Mar 13:38 Germany CRTD, TU-Dresden Christian Boekel Framing research funding in terms of contracts that describe research results as deliverables is missing the point. By its very nature innovative research will NOT yield results that are readily predictable when the funding is applied for. The consequence is vagueness in the desciption of research goals (... will have gained insight into XYZ by .....), most likely the opposite of the intended outcome from the side of the funding body. As a result, the proposed research cannot be judged on its own merit. 6 Jun 12:18 Germany Department für Physik, Ludwig Maximilians Universität Paul Tavan Instead of huge programs and funding of industries, why not take the concepts and procedures implemented in the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft or the Swiss Nationalfonds as a model? 19 Mar 13:04 Germany Department of Pediatrics I Ursula Felderhoff-Müser The large amount of bureaucracy involved in the administration of an EU grant is in strong contracdiction to the quality of science. The money for staff which is required to meet the current administrative EU expectations should be rather invested in upscale research. 3 Mar 16:43 Germany Department of Physics Wolfgang Kinzel Good research should be supported without additional time spent for writing long proposals with burocratic restrictions. 10 Mar 11:50 Germany Deutsches GeoForschungsZentrum GFZ Rainer Kind In Germany, I think, most people are happy with the system of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG), perhaps it could serve as example. 30 Mar 13:33 Germany Deutsches Museum Paul Hix The amount of administrative work, from proposal through negotiation to project management (reporting, time keeping,...) is very high in relation to the funding amount or the project content. 19 Mar 12:01 Germany Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt (DLR) Uwe Fey If we could spend all the time for research and development which is now dissipated by excessive administrative paperwork, Europe could be the worlds leading centre of science. 11 Mar 16:16 Germany Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt e.V. Jan Delfs administrational burden has ever increased along the various framework programmes in aeronautics; currently JTI represents the extreme in over-adminstration. My feeling is much too large funding is lost for research due to expenses in overboarding administration. Apart from this, the tendency to control any detail during the execution of an initially planned research working schedule of a project plan (which cannot be anything else but a research hypothesis) is contra productive for truly innovative work, because by definition it comes with a risk to fail. 11 Mar 14:27 Germany DLR Cord Rossow The purpose of EC-programs should be to advance the level of European science and technology. The administrative overhead asscociated with current projects is however impeding such intentions. Today, too much effort has to be directed towards completely non-scientific issues: money and human activity is spent in fields not generating any benefit for the society. If Europe wants to strengthen its competetiveness via reseach programs, the current adminstrative overhead needs to be drastically reduced. 11 Mar 15:23 Germany DLR Thomas Gerhold The bureaucracy overhead in EU projects is quite high 11 Mar 18:43 Germany DLR Klausdieter Pahlke The administrative burden of participating in EU projects is increasing for many years now. By this the costs and the effort are increasing which reduces the efficiency in research. Any simplification will be highly welcomed. 15 Mar 12:51 Germany DLR Jörg Güttler - 22 Mar 09:24 Germany DLR Florian Weyrauch I know from SME how not join FP7, because of administrative afford 3 May 09:46 Germany DLR Marc Hoefinger From experience of preparing proposals as well as participating in reserach projects of FP 6, FP 7 and the JTI Clean Sky, it is clear that the administraive process following the regulations defined by the EC needs some level of expert knowledge. The ressources associated with that process are disproportional large. This is supported by the fact that private companys exist that specialise on supporting the preparation of proposals as well as the project management of European research projects. And there is a need for this support. The administrative process definitely needs to be reduces severely. Research needs flexibility to create innovations. In addition the european research funding should not focus on large projects with massive budget like JTI. It needs the much more efficient small projects with a managable administrative process to support excellent ideas in an early stage. 11 Apr 17:21 Germany DLR - German Aerospace Center Christoph Günther I have personally two affiliations and roles, one at TU München (TUM) as a Professor and one at DLR as a director of the Institute of Communications and Navigation. At TUM, I did not apply for European Funding so far - it is too complex. At DLR we participate in and even lead a number of European Projects. The EU Framework plays an important role for us in conceiving new systems that must find international acceptance. In such cases, an early research cooperation eases very much the later establishment of the systems. Examples include new communication systems for aeronautics, satellite based navigation for aircraft landing, satellite broadcasting to mobile phones, and many more. Our perception is that the level of complexity in the application, and handling of EU-funded Project has very much increased in recent times. Furthermore, the transparency of decision making has diminished. In aeronautics, significant funds have been transferred to the joint undertaking SESAR, and are no more accessible to research institutions such as DLR. This although these institutions, and in particular my Institute, lead a number of developments in this area of expertise. Please simplify the processes, and regain control over the allocation of funds. The program elements FET/IST, STREPS, and IP are the right instruments for spurring innovation and research cooperation. They should be the backbone of the next Framework Programm. 4 Mar 09:23 Germany Dr. Meßmer Consulting Engineer Albert Messmer I was involved in many European research projects. A lot of paper is produced just to meet some formal requirements. 15 Mar 11:26 Germany EASA Michel MASSON Simpler, leaner, is better! 7 Jun 17:58 Germany Eberhard-Karls-Universität Tübingen Ingrid Kottke Decisions on proposals need to be more transparent. Proposals should therefore be presented orally in open frame in front of reviewers and applicants. 8 Mar 09:44 Germany Ernst-Moritz-Arndt-Universitaet Michael Schmitt Making the process of application, evaluation and decision for European science funding faster, simpler and more efficient would not only save time and money but would also increase the potential output of the applying scientistsbecause less of their time and energy would be distracted from their scientific labour. 25 Jun 15:58 Germany Excellence Cluster Universe Marco Baldi We should spend our time in actually doing research rather than in studying complicated regulations to apply for fundings. 7 Jun 20:52 Germany FAU Dominik Böhler Providing the ability to focus more on research and less on administrative tasks will greatly enhance the quality of research output. 9 Jun 16:08 Germany Flensburg University Herbert Bruhn I agree with every word of the statement. 5 Mar 09:35 Germany Frankfurt University Claudius Gros There is a balance between efficiency and control. It helps transparancy and efficiency when every cost for a scientific project has to be specified, but whenever this principle is stressed too much, it results in an overload of work. 5 Mar 15:04 Germany Fraunhofer Aki Zaharya Menevidis I am active since FP4, ESPRIT and at the present coordinator of two running FP7-projects.... I support the initiative, but I am afraid we do not have many fair chances but give up and look for some other programmes with less bureaucracy. 8 Jun 15:33 Germany Fraunhofer CNT Martin Landgraf Great initiative, I really hope the burden of admin mngt.can be limited 13 Aug 14:40 Germany Fraunhofer FOKUS Ina Schieferdecker European projects are a great instrument for doing research with international colleagues, however increasing management efforts needed to establish and process projects hinder more and more. 17 Feb 08:55 Germany Fraunhofer Gesellschaft Martin Wolpers I think that research funding administration should be made easier to be handled by researchers. Rules should completely rely on the rules of the funds-receiving organisation with a thorough review after each year. Researchers on the other hand need to understand how their own rules work. They should strive to make their best efforts to fulfil the promises they made in their project proposals. Finally, all involved parties should understand that they should work together so that some advances are actually being made. 27 May 22:25 Germany Fraunhofer Geselschaft Steffen Rupp I fully support the declaration. Reduction of administrative burden will help to focus on the essentials, R&D which is the original goal of the EU. 25 Feb 10:26 Germany Fraunhofer IAF Ruediger Quay We need Europe to work efficiently in the global competition, so please help us continue to standardize and simplify the EC porcesses and programs. 7 Jun 15:18 Germany Fraunhofer IGB Dieter Bryniok I totally agree and support the declaration. Reduced administrative expenditure will release resources and energy for R&D work, which should be the main objective for European Framework Programmes. 2 Jun 11:56 Germany Fraunhofer Institute for Wood research Brigitte Dix Research projects are necessary especially for SMEs (see many calls). But it is increasingly difficult to participate SMEs (fewer companies, the SMEs don´t have time and manpower for the meetings abroad and/or the necessary funds (already 10000 € are too much for many SME for research, especial in economic crises). In my experience, the application and administration (the research institutes must help) are too complicate for many SMEs. 20 Jul 12:09 Germany Fraunhofer IPA Cornelia Freudenberger I agree that European research should be based on trust and responsible partnering and therefore urgently needs a simplification and confident communication instead of often practised bureaucratic rule-enforcement. 20 May 13:30 Germany Fraunhofer IST Jan Gäbler Too many different rules and electronic systems. The money should be spent for R&D and not for building up a mess of different legal and IT things. 4 Aug 09:33 Germany Fraunhofer IWES Marc Schönfeld The funding of activities (Research, Demo, Training, Management ...) with different funding-rates is much to complex because direct costs and overheads on them have to be calculated (and later claimed in the Form C) separately. If you have to do some adjustments for previous periods later on, things are complicated even more ... In general I think researchers have to spent too much time on adminstrative functions which is very ineffective for the main research work. I think more trust in them and the organisation they work for would help the European Union to get faster and better results. 27 May 17:15 Germany Fraunhofer WKI Guido Hora The last 2 EU-projects we have been involved in took almost 12 month from the note from the EC of the acceptance of funding until the GA has been signed. Also, negative comments from PO were often very frustrating. Strict dateline by the EC towards the project consortium and coordinators, but EC takes all their time in the world! The process must be accelerated by a factor 2 to 3 with clear action plans during the negotiation phase. Outsourcing to not EC employed PO didnt help to speed the process. Very, very frustrating...... 12 Mar 09:20 Germany Freie Universität Berlin Lutz Prechelt Rules and regulations are about balancing safety against freedom. EU funding rules currently stifle freedom. 27 Mar 11:32 Germany Freie Universität Berlin Marie-Theres Strauss Europe needs less red tape and more dedicated cooperation between researchers and policy makers. Anything that helps to achieve this is worth fighting for. Please help establish the foundations for a truly European scholarly community. 5 Jun 11:03 Germany Freie Universität Berlin Nicolas Apostolopoulos This is a very important initiative that will truly help to improve the output of European research activities. www.cedis.fu-berlin.de 3 Mar 16:13 Germany Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Lennart Olsson I support this declaraion. 3 May 22:41 Germany FU Berlin Knut Reinert It becomes more and more cumbersome to manage the administrative burden for EU proposals. Many good researchers refrain from applying for funding or are intimidated by the hurdles to take. This has to change. 10 Mar 10:40 Germany FZ Dresden-Rossendorf Vinzenz Brendler I sign this declaration as I have gained experience with EU R&D proposals and projects since more than 15 years. And nearly always the administrative burden was very frustrating - as are intransparent procedures of decisions. 20 May 11:32 Germany Georg-August-University Ernst A. Wimmer Lets not waste time and money on administration but spend it on good research! 4 Jun 15:32 Germany German Aerospace Center (DLR) Jürgen Kompenhans Due to my own experience as partner, work package manager and coordinator in different networks, STREPs and NoE I agree with the objectives and support the initiative to reduce the administrational overhead and overregulation at EC funded research projects. However, we have also to consider that we spend taxpayers’ money and have to justify how we do this. In my opinion this should not be done by monitoring the budget with increasing attention to details but by assessing whether the scientific and technical results of a project justify the amount of budget spent. A reduction of administrational overhead and controlling should be balanced by a better review process of the scientific and technical results of a project. 3 May 16:52 Germany German Aerospace Center (DLR) Anthony Gardner The complexity of the current European funding process creates a significant overhead for the group applying. This discourages applications and reduces the funding available for research. Changing the current system will be difficult, but the amount of paperwork ideally needs to be cut to be not more than 10% of the total cost of a project. 19 May 09:10 Germany German National Library for Economics Olaf Siegert After participating in an EU project I definitely think, that the bureaucracy involved is too high (also compared to national funding organisations in Germany). 18 Mar 17:18 Germany German Primate Centre Antje Engelhardt its crystal clear 25 Feb 08:25 Germany GFH GmbH Roswitha Giedl-Wagner The administrative effort necessary for a successful application for European funding are hard to meet for SMEs. 24 Feb 16:24 Germany Global Pharma Health Fund (GPHF) Richard Jähnke There should be direct administrative channels for each governmental department (health, family, youth, welfare etc.) from local town hall right up to Brussel for project submission. 5 Mar 17:32 Germany Goethe University Ingrid Fleming Optimise efficiency by givign us more time to research and demand less time for unnecessary reporting at too regular intervals 9 May 12:29 Germany HafenCity University Hamburg Ingrid Breckner I miss European funding for research on urban development, allthough cities have to face in a concentrated mannor consequences of the neoliberal societal development with a huge risk for Eurpean democracies. 3 Mar 10:04 Germany Hannover Medical School Thilo Dörk-Bousset Every hour you spend on EU bureaucracy is a lost hour in the progress of science to combat human disease. 19 May 16:27 Germany Heidelberg University Michael Wink There is a unique principle called KISS keep it short and simple this should also apply for EU funding 25 May 20:53 Germany Helmholtz Center Munich - Institute of Groundwater Ecology Piotr Maloszewski I fully support that declaration. 4 Mar 15:19 Germany Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research Francois Buscot EU should support true research without burocracy and attempt to interfeer in the topics. EU needs a strong basic and applied research and this is only to achieve with a bottom up structure and not a permanent intervention of burocrates and politicians in definition of the topics and organization form. The actual EU frame programs is mainly waste of money and justification of inefficient burocrates 20 May 10:10 Germany Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research - UFZ Dana Kühnel Simplify proceedure, reduce time effort, increase output! 25 May 15:59 Germany helmholtz zentrum muenchen Marius Ueffing The current burden of admin, useless control sheets, audits and reporting is impairing our ability to focus on research and development and burries much of our energy in useless formal activities. - How can Europe ever succeed as a science driven society if it hinders those who work for it. 25 May 15:35 Germany Helmholtz Zentrum Muenchen, German Research Center for Environmental Health Juergen Ertel European funding is part of our strategic research focus and indicator of the international profile and scientific repuation of our organisation. Therefore, it is very important that European Funding remains attractive for our researchers and that the administrative burden will be kept as small as possible. Due to the increasing number of activities like ERC, ERA NET, TP and JTI with PPP, EIT, Joint Programming etc. the administrative burden is increasing from Framework Program to Framework Program making things very complex. Rules, guidelines, legal things are becomming very diverse and should be simplified and underly the same regulations. An electronic reporting system is fine but should be finalised before a new Franmework Program starts and not use the project leaders as tester. 25 May 16:55 Germany Helmholtz Zentrum München Rainer Meckenstock In my eyes the efforts to write milestones and deliverables is absolutely useless. It just makes the reporting more tedious but it doesnt increase the outcomes of the study. Science is not foreseable in a way that one can plan a certain result to be achieved by a fixed day. We need a research plan and a good ideas but only very rough time plans (no more than a bar sheet). 26 May 10:09 Germany Helmholtz Zentrum München Annette Peters The administrative burden is substantially higher in FP7 than in FP5. As a consequence research staff is involved in administrative work who otherwise would be available for research tasks. 25 Jun 16:59 Germany Helmholtz Zentrum München Cornelia Kaloff The following two duties should be disestablished: - filling of time sheets (too complicated, time-consuming and unnecessary) - deliverables reports (unnecessary, as all information is already included in the periodic activity reports) 25 May 15:56 Germany Helmholtz-Centre Munich Mike Atkinson Present and previous experience as coordinator of 2 projects, partner in 5 others, evaluator in different EU programmes and member of Advisory board in 2 contracts. Administrative tasks required by the commission have decreased significantly over the last decade, but the complexity of the schemes and the application process provides a de-facto barrier excluding many talented European researchers who are not fortunate in having ready access to assistance and advice. The low probability of success discourages many highly talented groups from applying as it is no longer a cost-effective use of their resources. Strong financial oversight is required but can be simplified. 21 Mar 11:29 Germany Helmut-Schmidt Universität Hamburg Michael Breuer Research should gain more importance, not administrative tasks! 13 Mar 18:13 Germany Helmut-Schmidt-Universität/University of the Federal Armed Forces Hendrik Rothe The EU comission is there for the scientists, not vice versa. 20 May 18:41 Germany HS Coburg Wolfram Haupt For small institutes and universities it is nearly impossible to handle the bureaucracy of EU projects - so the grants mainly are given to the big institutes and universities, which can afford teams of specialists in EU bureaucracy. By this not only a lot of researchers are excluded of funding but also a big share of the funds is not spent for research but for bureaucracy instead. 2 Mar 12:10 Germany IBK Management Solution GmbH Andreas Dalluege I work in EU projects since 1990 and my perception is that the financial rules for both applying as well as running projecvts has become more and more complicated over the years. This is especially sad in face of the fact that the CEC claimes that it has become simpler to apply and join, especially for SMEs. 15 Mar 21:09 Germany IBZ-Freiberg Gerald Ziegenbalg I strongly support this initiative. 4 May 11:04 Germany IfADo Michael Falkenstein This is a highly necessary and urgent initiative which will help talented and motivated scientist to apply for EU funding 26 Mar 11:53 Germany IFM-GEOMAR Rainer Froese In my last FP6 project, the existence of one SMS was threatened because they were unable to fulfill the bureaucratic requirements of the Commission. They had advanced the funds but did not get a full refund, although they had delivered all their deliverable. 17 Mar 08:33 Germany INBW Martin Fischer Use time and power for effective research! 14 Apr 14:47 Germany Institut für Arbeitsforschung an der Universität Dortmund IFADO Patricio Godoy Working under a EU-project contract has been a new and somewhat uncomfortable experience due to the bureaucratic aspects of it. There are too many reports, charts, and uneasy policies which are counterproductive to scientific research. I whish our petition is heard and the administrative aspects are simplified. 13 Feb 15:53 Germany Institut für Deutsche Sprache Gerhard Stickel I support the authors of this initiative wholeheartedly. 15 Feb 14:59 Germany Institut für Technische Chemie Thomas Scheper Make things simple and effective! 10 Mar 13:04 Germany Institute for Geoinformatics, University of Muenster Werner Kuhn The major mistake was the drive to extremely large projects (IP), where there is huge overhead (delegated from the commission to the consortia), and minimal research (as one cannot engage in intense collaboration in such loose and wide networks). 4 Jun 16:42 Germany Institute for Infomation, Organisation and Management, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München Arnold Picot Expecially mediums sized and smaller research organisations are clearly disadvantaged with the current, very complex and cumbersome procedures! 12 Mar 13:47 Germany Institute of Aerospace Systems Björn Heinbokel Optimizing the process of acquiring funds for research projects will enable researchers to focus on their project - not the support work of it. I therefore endorse this petition. 26 May 13:44 Germany Internationaler Verein für technische Holzfragen Rainer Marutzky I deeply appriaciate the various opportunities to do research and cooperation on a European level but considerung the cost benefit ratio of most of the European programmes i have to state that the application procedures are to bureaucratic, to ineffective and connected with large amounts of non-relevant data. The application procedures should be essentially revised with support of expericenced suppmitters from industry and research centres. It is also recommended to introduce a first application and pre-decision phase with short proposals before starting the elaboration of a complete application form. 19 May 17:34 Germany IZMB der Universitaet Bonn Volker Knoop 100% support for long-needed statement. EU science funding bureaucracy is an outright turnoff to apply and among the biggest time-stealers in academia. 22 Feb 08:53 Germany Karlruhe Institute of Technology Thomas Jordan Vote for a stratgically consistent support, relying on the networks built up with considerable investment in the past. 6 May 18:48 Germany Karlsruhe Institute of Technology Ulrich Nierste First steps could be the elimination of multiple reports (annual, midterm, final) for the same reporting period, replacing the tight ESR/ER definitions by PhD student and postdoc (used by national funding agencies), allow for flexibility in the use of the personnel costs (choose yourself whether to hire 3 PhD students or 2 postdocs, depending on the job market situation) and eliminate the collection of useless statistical data by the PIs (which costs a lot of time to collect and are not used for EU policy decisions anyway). 3 Mar 16:36 Germany Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) Siegfried Berninghaus The bureaucratic requirements of applications for research funding proliferated from year to year. Where will we stand after the next 20 years? 10 Mar 09:12 Germany Karlsruhe Institute of Technology - Institute for Nuclear Waste Management Gunnar Buckau I am dealing with the EURATOM program since the mid-eighties. Coordinating large projects, including within the on-going FP7. Lowering the administrative burden is an on-going and necessary process, not a one-step and then it is done approach. Some things have improved, many other can, and should be improved/simplified. For this purpose, the Commission should invite exrerienced project coordinators, financial officers and legal officers in order to establish a catalogue with practical recommendations. 7 May 13:14 Germany Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, KIT Wim de Boer Filling out forms how many hours at which date a researcher has been thinking about his project is insane. Only bureaucrats can come up with such ideas. The output of a project should be measured in terms of science (publications, patents, talks, ..), not by engaging finance controllers checking how the money was spent. 30 Apr 10:51 Germany Karlsruher Institut für Technologie Gregor Snelting Buerocratic overhead for EU projects is way too high. This damages productivity of research. 4 Jun 19:28 Germany KIT Zhukov Valery Very lengthy and complicated procedure for any application, consuming 50% of time needed for research! 10 Mar 10:49 Germany Leibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research Wim Schwerdtner Freedom of science is granted by Art. 13 of the EU Charter: The arts and scientific research shall be free of constraint. Academic freedom shall be respected. The most potent constraints for academic freedom result nowadays not from politics but from a cancer-like spreading bureaucracy. 13 Apr 21:18 Germany Leibniz Research Centre (IfADo) Jan G Hengstler In recent years EU-funding has become increasingly important in our field of research. However, administration is very time consuming for the involved scientists. Too much energy is put into administrative issues consuming critical hours that better should be invested into scientific work. 3 Mar 09:13 Germany Leibniz Universität Hannover, Institut f. Pflanzengenetik Hans-Jörg Jacobsen I totally agree, the bureaucracy prevents from applying! 9 Apr 14:35 Germany Leibniz-Institut für Molekulare Pharmakologie Andrew Plested All grant applications and reporting burdens should be as short as possible. But particularly grants, because the time spent writing is not always rewarded with funding. It would, perhaps, be fairer to collect all information that is non-essential for the funding decision, only for successful applications. But gratuitous collection of data should be stopped. 4 Jun 16:47 Germany LMU Heinrich C. Kuhn The preambula to the declaration is too lyrical for my taste (e.g. visions are religious or medical phenomena, and should have no place anywhere else), but I agree with the aims of the declaration. 4 Jun 17:18 Germany LMU Andreas Hauser Current situation is so unbalanced that there are software programs available to generate false time keeping data for EU projects. 7 Jun 14:35 Germany LMU Guenter Froeschl if you need extensive training and education, and an extra position for a secretary, just to be able to write a grant-application and the proper reports afterwards, there is something deeply wrong 7 Jun 14:37 Germany LMU Nico Grove Actual approach prefers tender process experienced bidders with (tender specific) ressources. Small institutions with the tender requested knwolegde however cannot afford to enter bidding process due to lack of resources. 7 Jun 14:38 Germany LMU Armin Scrinzi Suggestion for priorities: - STABLE rules: even the worst rules may seem simple once you got time to get them to know. - Long term, stable administrative staff: staff can learn about his/her subjects and develop more professionally. This is one of the secrets of any effective burocracy. - Reduction of reports: every scientist knows that they are essentially for the administrative drawers: even knowing this, producing them costs TIME. - Reduction of milestones and similar fun stuff: these are largely buracratic rituals which we, the scientists, comply with. Inventing ever new ways how the milestones were reached and passed costs TIME. 4 Jun 22:05 Germany LMU München Werner Degenhardt I fully support the declaration. The administrative overhead is just too much to get your R&D work done, which was the original goal of the EU funding. 7 Jun 10:17 Germany Ludwig Maximilian University Christoph K. Neumann Furthermore, I think that the principles both of funding and of reporting/accounting should be organised in a way that takes the nature of the disciplines involved in a project into consideration. Geriartric psychiatry, polimer chemistry and research in medieval music are all too different from each other to be subjected to the same procedures. 7 Jun 11:45 Germany Ludwig Maximilians Universitaet Joseph Zihl We need more time for research. One weay to achieve this is to reduce the time spent for administration. 7 Jun 10:49 Germany Ludwig Maximilians University Dieter Braun We want to invest in science, not in bureaucracy! 7 Jun 20:55 Germany Ludwig Maximilians Univserität Hubertus Kohle I habe taken part last year in a project which was horribly complicated. I do wish that this will change profoundly! 4 May 21:54 Germany Ludwig-Maximilian University of Munich François Bry European funding programs suffer from a considerable administrative overhead. Furthermofe, reasearchers at most European universities do not get the administrative support they might expect from their employers. This situation has dramatic consequences on European research: Resources are shift from productive research to unproductive administration. 17 May 19:07 Germany Ludwig-Maximilian-University Munich Arthur Schuessler I am involved in one FP7 EU project and I coordinated a small FP6 MC-project, which just ended (biological sciences). The administrative burdon is 95% unnecesarry. I fully understand the need of some controlling, but the EU projects clearly overdo and by that cause huge costs (lost working time, etc.). I strongly vote for simplifying this, it really is contraproductive and hinders efficient research. 7 Apr 10:50 Germany Ludwig-Maximilians Universität (LMU) Lukas Schmidt-Mende Especially for young researchers it seems to be impossible to start to coordinate a new EU project because of all its administrative work. 4 Jun 16:51 Germany Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitaet Armin Nassehi I have experiences both with German research grants (DFG or Federal Ministries) and a EU-grant (Knowledge&Policy). In camparison with the national level of research the EU grant needs much more bureaucratic input. Beyond that I want to suggest to facilitate different formats of research, e.g. smaller formats in humanities and social science. 4 Jun 16:54 Germany Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität Nic. Nistor Researchers have to do more research and less bureaucracy! 20 May 08:38 Germany Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München Gert Wörheide Yes, make the application and admin short and simple! 5 Jun 16:51 Germany Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München Gerd Sutter From my personal involvement as project partner in 11 research networks since 1996 and my role as coordinator of the FP6 network MVACTOR (LSHB-CT2006-037536) I have experienced a rapidly and steadily increasing administrative burden associated with EU funded research. I fully support this declaration! Gerd Sutter, LMU Munich 4 Jun 16:51 Germany Ludwig-Maximilians-University Benedikt Bader To receive funding for a year, you have to work 2 months. Unfortunatley, the chance of funding is usually below 20%. If granted, you keep fulfilling requirements rather than working in actual research. 3 Mar 11:19 Germany Martin-Luther-University Werner Roos I have just experienced the decline by the EC of a joint european research proposal of high scientifc level - as confirmed by the reviewers. The reason for the negative decision remains obscure, i.e a non-transparent minor organisatorical problem causing a less-than-100 % match with actual bureaucratic rules of the EC, not comprehensible by any member of the consortium that included groups of whole europe - from Italy to Poland. I urgently wish that the EC stops waisting the potential of joint research in Europe by forcing the work of top scientists into unacceptable rules that seemingly serve industrial development but in reality compromize the scientific level. Research of high level and originality needs to be supported, regardless the actual connections to any industries. The scientific results - not speculative intentions - should be presented and explained to potential industrial users. This is the only way to bring together the best science with the most developed industries, such cooperations then need no longer support from the public European funds. 25 Jun 15:47 Germany Max Placnck Institut of Psychaitry Axel Steiger Time should be used for research, not for to much bureaucracy. 17 Mar 09:25 Germany Max Planck Institut für Entwicklungsbiologie Dirk Linke I had a two-day course on how to manage an EU project and was as confused as before 16 Mar 18:49 Germany Max Planck Institute for biol. Cybernetics Maria Waizel ProTest! 25 May 22:35 Germany Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry Christian Griesinger The ERC grants are a great exception to the bureaucracy that one normally experiences with the EU. If they could adopt this scheme for the rest of the framework programmes, then a lot would be won already. Different from the rest of the funding tools of the EU in the frame work programmes, the ERC grants can be written and administered without the help from a company. 3 Mar 19:10 Germany Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization Theo Geisel It should be possible to succeed with a proposal merely by scientific merits without needing to take courses in lobbying and EU comitology (e.g. http://www.e-t-i.be/) 5 Mar 16:08 Germany Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology Martin Haspelmath Research funding organization may never become as simple as an iPhone, but its a useful ideal to try to approach. 20 May 09:47 Germany Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology Joerg Noack KISS - Keep it simple and straightforward 21 May 11:30 Germany Max Planck Institute for Foreign and International Law Marianne Wade The time, effort and special skills required to ensure EU-funded research projects are correctly administered are so demanding, they cause reluctance even among experienced research administrators to support applications. To counter this, researchers must often take on an administrative burden distracting them from doing what they should be and what EU research funding should be supporting them to do: the best research they can. 4 May 10:44 Germany Max Planck institute for molecular cell biology and genetics Hyman Anthony Senior scientists are those with the experience to run the large networks. There time should be spent coordinating the science and not the red tape. Currently a coordinator is forced to wrestle with the small details rather than the big picture 18 May 17:25 Germany Max Planck Society Ruediger Hesse The burden on the EU administration could be reduced by the grant of awards. The current practice whereby scientific contents are reviewed using a rather accountant-like approach on the basis of milestones is not likely to be any more successful in the future. In contrast, the aim should be on ex-post reviews of research results, which could, at the same time, be teamed with an incentive system for the exploitation of research results. Successfully valuated projects should be rewarded with another, unconditional award of about 25 % of the initial grant. Through this or a similarly structured incentive system, it might be possible to draw up an exhaustive public balance of the output of EU-funded research in FP8. 13 Apr 08:18 Germany Max-Delbrück-Centrum Martina Bockhardt The payment conditions are very difficult and the contract differs to the normal contracts in our institution. 28 Jun 02:41 Germany max-planck-insitute for Astrophysics roderik overzier I believe the main goal of the European Researchers funding scheme should be to bring in the best researchers from overseas or to keep the best researchers in Europe. However, this goal will never be achieved as long as the route to obtaining funding isnt drastically simplified: at least in astrophysics, It appears to be much easier and much less work to get equal (or better) jobs elsewhere than from the EU funding scheme. 17 Mar 11:09 Germany Max-Planck-Institut fuer Biologische Kybernetik Nikolaos C. Aggelopoulos The time used for red tape and dealing with administrative paperwork is time taken away from research, which is what the EU is funding, what the researchers have been trained in and what the public expects from them. 18 Mar 16:05 Germany Max-Planck-Institut fuer Ornithologie Wolfgang Goymann As somebody who has been through the hazzle of application and managing a European grant I will certainly think three or four times before applying again. Unless I am in desperate need of research money I certainly wont. You just loose so much of valuable time for doing research and writing publications. The EU should take the German Research Foundation (DFG) or the US National Science Foundation as role models to simplify application. And also, please stop the Multi language jargon.... 25 May 11:11 Germany Max-Planck-Institut für Mikrostrukturphysik Martin Hölzer I agree with every single word. 18 Mar 21:05 Germany Max-Planck-Institut für Ornithologie Rudolf Alexander Steinbrecht As compared to applying for funding with the German Research Organisation (DFG) applications for European funds were much more paperwork with much less chances of success. In particular the evaluation of such applications remained obscure and doubtful. 13 Apr 09:23 Germany MDC Jan Siemens It is highly desirable to reduce the bureaucratic burden for the administrative personel and the researcher/grant holder. I am certain that monitoring the appropriate use of allocated funds can be successfully implemented with a streamlined and reduced administrative work load. 7 Jun 08:47 Germany Medical Department, Klinikum der Ludwig-maximilians University Martin Reincke Full support for the declaration 21 May 10:53 Germany Medical Faculty Carl Gustav Carus of Dresden University of Technology Thorsten Liebers I totally agree. 25 Jun 18:21 Germany MPE Rene Fassbender Time wasted with bureaucracy is time lost for discovery! 4 Mar 09:33 Germany MPI Brain Research Wolf Singer reward achievements rather than prophecies, 16 Mar 18:47 Germany MPI for Biological Cybernetics Suvrit Sra The process should be made more transparent, and less bureaucracy clad. 25 Jun 19:12 Germany MPI für Physik Stefan Kluth I do support this declaration, since I was and still am involved in EU applications, and found that wihtout support by EU experts it is impossible to navigate the system. Also, the impact of pre-chosen research policies on the funding programs is largeand stops many very good ideas, because they dont fit into a rigid frame. 31 Mar 11:17 Germany MPI-CBG Marino Zerial A simplified administration would allow the better allocation of resources for supporting high quality and innovative research. 14 Mar 20:45 Germany MPIfG Martin Schröder Please simplify EU-funding for research. 26 Apr 16:13 Germany MTU Aero Engines Jochen Gier Administration should be as lean as possible to free resources (people and their time) to work on creative technical work. 22 Apr 19:05 Germany MTU Aero Engines GmbH Stephan Servaty New regulations for financial statements in FP 7 (e.g. calculate the RTD costs based on individual personnel rates) put additional burden on each participant in the research programme. This is not considered justified since there are national price checks as well. Thus a doubling of work is induced. 23 Apr 14:02 Germany MTU Aero Engines GmbH Andreas Fiala Backbone frame document (no changes for at least 10 years) Describing changes form FPn to FPn+1 only. Less changes 29 Apr 08:56 Germany MTU Aero Engines GmbH Weiss Eugen It is really necessary, to allow to use the common -nationally und internationally acknowledged and certified accounting and calculation methodes (no parallel accounting system) 19 Mar 09:49 Germany Nomor Research thomas Stockhammer We have are strongly considering to not apply for EU funding any more because of the incredible burden for applying for funding. 19 Mar 12:07 Germany Nomor Research GmbH Eiko Seidel Besides the red tape during the project as mentioned before, also the preparation and coordination of the proposals take a huge amount of time. The chance for actual funding at the latest calls was rather small left for those using professional help in drafting such proposals and doing lobbying for it. 19 May 10:09 Germany Otto-von-Guericke-Universität Holger Kersten We are currently involved in a Comenius Program and the amount of time and effort that goes into the administrative work required by the EU is outrageous. It diminishes the time and energy available for the actual project in a significant way. 25 May 17:02 Germany Otto-von-Guericke-Universität Kristin Kersten Time and efforts that need to go into administrative procedures are tremendous, unforeseeable, and hardly manageable for colleagues with a scientific background. The legal requirements greatly diminish time and energy for the research studies, which should be at the core of each project. More than one project partner has announced that they would never want to coordinate such a project...! Such demotivation is sad, and unnecessary. We urge you to simplify the procedures. 28 Jul 14:32 Germany Otto-von-Guericke-Universität Magdeburg Ulrich Hauptmanns The assessment of whether a contract has been duly completed should be carried out evaluating the products instead of looking at lists containing presumably worked hours of a number of collaborators. Although co-operation is desirable projects involving too many institutions produce too much overhead costs. In many cases a close evaluation of whether what is proposed to be done has not already been done by other people who were less efficient salesmen is desirable. 15 Mar 15:18 Germany Papiertechnische Stiftung Jean-Yves Escabasse Darwin determined that the best adapted to their environment would survive. The European red-tape is selecting the same kind of bureaucrats as those having made these rules. Only their kind may find their way through this jungle... 17 Jul 20:19 Germany PBC-group Evangeline Leitl There are too many obstacles for the international work of research-groups, for instance genomic screen. There is no possibility for the ones with rare diseases to send blood etc. for ongoing genomic screens to other countries, due to the ethical approval! So happened only some months ago (and still is not possible) to the ones with PBC (rare autoimmune disease), for instance. We cannot send samples to the studies ongoing in other countries (at the moment ongoing in Oxford, U.K.), the samples cannont be accepted there! It is not understandable, as there is effort, but this cannot be for the patients in other countries. And this in the 21-st century! So sorry. Evangeline Leitl, PBC-sufferer with genetic background. 15 Mar 22:14 Germany Philipps-University Christian Wegener I find it dissapointing that it is not possible to apply for funding for small European collaborations (or in EU speak trans-national partnerships) outside the very strictly defined framework topics. As a single researcher, I can apply for an ERC-grant, but why not jointly together with say 2-3 collaborators in France, the UK or Sweden. And please simplify language: most scientists are neither economists nor politicians that may be more familiar with long sentences about things that can be said in a few words. 7 Mar 11:09 Germany Pioneer Hi-Bred Tobias Wilhelm Eschholz Design of research projects based on scientific relevance would be desirable. My experience was that applications for funding are often written to meet the interests of funding organisations based on questionable ideology. 4 Jun 17:28 Germany Poliklinik für Zahnerhaltung, LMU München Karl-Heinz Kunzelmann The current process of EU funding is an enormous waste of man power. The bureacratic application procedure is just focused on formalities. In addition, according to my experience, it is nearly impossible to get funding without extensive lobbying. BUT the costs for lobbying are so high that not every qualified researcher can afford it. Another fact which causes an enormous waste of resources it the need to find partners from other EU countries. In reality this means that some partners are invited to be on the applications only. They get some benefits, but they do not really contribute adequately to the project. In addition, the current policy of funding focus topics is not beneficial for strategic research plans. This policy just means that institutes orient their research interests to fit into those focus topics to get funding at all. But these topics often are not really promoting science (just those who suggested these topics with lobbying). 14 Feb 06:34 Germany Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research Juergen Kropp Accounting and Reporting at least should be standardised for the certain programmes (e.g. ESPON, FRP, INTERREG, etc) and bureaucracy must considerably reduced, because on researchers side it leads to inefficiency. 16 Feb 23:08 Germany Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research Armin Haas In Germany, 20 per cent of budget titles of a research project may be reallocated without special permission of the funding agency. This gives flexibility, avoids a lot of redtape, and still establishs limits to reallocating funds. The EU should contemplate this or comparable measures. 9 Mar 15:00 Germany Robert Koch Institut Toni Aebischer Administrative hurdles certainly block initiative, the return in support vs efforts needed to fulfill administrative issues in application is often much more attractive when addressing other Funders, not EU. 15 Mar 08:31 Germany Rolls-Royce Deutschland Ralf von der Bank Angenommene Texte vom 23. April 2009 Das Europäische Parlament .... 117. ist besorgt über die Vorschriften des 7. Rahmenprogramms, die von den gemeinsamen national und international anerkannten und zugelassenen Buchungs- und Berechnungsmethoden abweichen und die Ergebnisse der nationalen Prüfbehörden betreffend die national bescheinigten durchschnittlichen Stundensätze pro Kostenstelle nicht akzeptieren; ist der Ansicht, dass die Vorschriften des 7. Rahmenprogramms eindeutig den modernen Rechnungslegungs- und Berechnungsgrundsätzen der europäischen Industrie widersprechen, indem Angaben zu den individuellen Kosten für die aktiv in ein spezifisches Forschungsprogramm involvierten Personen gefordert werden; fordert die Kommission auf, ein Verfahren einzuleiten, um die Vorschriften des 7. Rahmenprogramms den allgemeinen Geschäftspraktiken anzugleichen, die eine Berechnung und Abgeltung der durchschnittlichen Stundensätze pro Kostenstelle erlauben statt Angaben zu den individuellen Kosten für die aktiv in ein spezifisches Forschungsprogramm involvierten Personen zu verlangen; 118. ist bezüglich der Methodenzertifikate (CoM und CoMAv) besorgt über die noch nicht genehmigten Zertifikate und fordert die Kommission mit Nachdruck auf, die erforderlichen verständlichen Kriterien für die Genehmigung der Methodenzertifikate für Personal- und indirekte Kosten festzulegen; ist der Ansicht, dass die Begünstigten durchschnittliche Personalkosten geltend machen und eine anerkannte Methode für die Berechnung der indirekten Kosten nutzen können sollten; fordert einen rechtzeitigen Beginn der Genehmigung (oder Ablehnung) der Zertifikate, um sicherzustellen, dass die für die Forschung vorgesehenen Mittel verwendet werden können; fordert die Kommission auf, derartige durchschnittliche Stundensätze pro Kostenstelle ohne Methodenzertifikat zumindest dann zu akzeptieren, wenn sie von einer nationalen Behörde geprüft und bescheinigt sind; 17 Mar 15:26 Germany Rolls-Royce Deutschland Uwe Hessler Average cost rates (personnel and overhead) approved by independent national bodies, mandated by national governments, should be adopted by the EU Commission. 18 Mar 13:42 Germany Rolls-Royce Deutschland Michael Klingsporn Simplify administration of EU research projects! 19 Mar 13:47 Germany Rolls-Royce Deutschland Ltd& Co Kg Jan Lieser EU research projects should focus on scientific output and limit overhead caused by administrative and legal issues. 29 Mar 10:07 Germany Rolls-Royce Deutschland Ltd. & Co KG Arne Sturm I hope the resolutions no. 117 and no. 118 made by the European Parliament on the 23.04.2009 will be implemented into FP7 guidelines quickly. Average hourly rates per cost centre should be claimable (also without CoM) if they are audited by national price audit authorities. This applies also to the calculation of the indirect costs percentages. This procedure would not lead to an increased administrative burden - currently FP7 rules create to much burden in times where all industries and branches are looking for decreasing such kind of costs. 27 Feb 17:19 Germany Ruhr-Universität Bochum Gregor Schoner The US counterparts to EU research funding, the National Science Foundation and the National Institute of Health have radically simplified their financial accounting principles, abolishing itemized budgets. Their have realized that obtaining funding is hard and critical for researchers, so they themselves work very hard to optimize use of the research funds they are able to obtain. 3 Mar 19:13 Germany Ruhr-University Bochum Werner Brilon Today, a research institute which applies for EU-research, in most cases, is forced to spend quite an amount of money to pay a specialized consultant who is required to fill out the enormous paper work in a way that it has a chance to be accepted by the EU administration. This degree of bureaucracy is not longer acceptable. 23 Feb 16:56 Germany Schmidt-Bischoffshausen, Executive strategy and innovation Consulting Horst Schmidt-Bischoffshausen For many years I have been R&D consultant and adviser to the different R&T programs of the different European FP 4-7. Most of the people I got to know where very serious and honest. Only on the basis of trust and honesty we can materialize new R&D ideas into competitive products and processes. Our media sometimes exaggerate the problems of a few people who misuse our system and the organisation. We shall not overlook this fact, but we all suffer. Thus trust can only be the basis for openminded cooperation accross Europe and not clever cheating. 3 Aug 11:29 Germany Science Services GmbH Stefan Schöffberger Hello, from my experience in research I can say that administrative burdens take up more and more time the more successful a researcher is with his work. Senior researchers who should be there for their siblings spend most of the time with administrative work - a lot of that with work on funding their research. With more time for their work, that is research, the qualitiy and succes will be far beyond the current outcome. Please check if there are ways to effectively minimize this burden. 4 Mar 09:30 Germany Soziologisches Forschungsinstitut an der Georg-August-Universität Goettingen Peter Bartelheimer Administrative workload is prohibitive for a medium-size research institution like SOFI. As it is, we act as partners in integrated programs but lack the administrative resources to take the initiative on tenders or to volunteer as lead partner. This restricts the potential of EU calls for tenders. 1 May 21:37 Germany State and University Library Goettingen Margo Bargheer Research projects funded by the EC increasingly are increasing to become highly unattractive to partner in or even risky. The administrative burden and over-proportional duty for extensive and highly formalised reporting creates an atmosphere of mistrust and takes up so much of the personnel power that the actual project work either suffers or is done on an uneligible basis. True innovation becomes rather difficult in such an environment. The system needs to change urgently. The policies of many European national funding organisations should be taken as examples that a mutual trust in research funding does not lead to fraud but to the contrary - effective and innovative research. 5 Mar 11:03 Germany TAC TechnologieAgentur Chemnitz GmbH Marghitta Wieloch We urgently need to simplify financial regulation for research projects and other funding by European Commission. Especially small and medium sized enterprises are looking for that. 3 Mar 10:25 Germany Technical University Darmstadt Hans Hartnagel I fully support this motion. 27 May 09:17 Germany Technische Universitaet Braunschweig Wolfgang Augustin The main focus of European research projekts should be research not administration 2 Mar 17:56 Germany Technische Universitaet Dortmund, Sozialforschungsstelle Monika Goldmann To deal with administrative and financial provisions takes such an tremendous amount of time which should better be invested in shaping the ideas and the content of the projects and the proposals. 10 Apr 12:45 Germany Technische Universität Berlin Dieter Scherer So far, participation in European research projects is difficult for smaller research groups from universities that do not have large administrative staff available. This needs to be improved by reducing the administrative burden. 2 Mar 16:51 Germany Technische Universität Dortmund Hans-Werner Franz Make it simpler. Dont let financial experts decide whether I am allowed to buy a book for a specific project. 18 Feb 11:02 Germany Technische Universität München Andreas Keil The European authorities should keep in mind that the administrative burden for acquiring and managing funding almost completely lies on the people that are actually meant to do research. This means that, nowadays, marketing and management becomes more important than the actual research. The result is that I personally would prefer to work in a small group with less external funding than in a well-funded (and prestigious) one. The more administrative work is imposed, the less are the chances that the best research will be promoted. 15 Mar 07:50 Germany Technische Universität München Tobias Nipkow I have basically stopped applying for EU grants because of the bureaucrazy involved. 27 Mar 14:27 Germany Technische Universität München Nils Kammenhuber (1) Reduce bureaucracy! No more time sheets! (2) Completely reverse your proposal acceptance guidelines: Do not accept any research proposals that rule out in great detail with time plans and man-month accounting what research problems the project will start solving in three years. You build houses or commercial software that way, you develop a new commercial product this way. But by its very nature, real research is about exploring the Unknown -- and the Unknown usually does not comply with detailed time plans that you set up two years ago. Alas, it is widely known that a proposal will not get accepted if it does not contain such over-detailed descriptions of how to tackle the Unknown. This is such a waste of academic resources. In summary, does the EU really want researchers to spend months and months of their working time on writing and polishing ornate research proposals the size of novels, only so that upon acceptance they have to fill in time sheets and Form Cs, and will discuss in numerous e-mails and telephone conferences the contents of the next deliverables for the upcoming deadline? Or does the EU want researchers to concentrate on innovative, challenging, ground-breaking research? 25 May 15:59 Germany Technische Universität München Hans-Werner Mewes The administrative overhead is not only not practical but contradicts the basic idea of scientific research. The evolution of formal requirements to apply, run and administer European projects is just counterproductive to competitive and successful science. 3 Mar 15:32 Germany Technische Universität München, Institute of Forest Management Thomas Schneider Workload and formalisms preparing a proposal for a EU program expanded from year to year. The success quote but the input/result ratio decreased dramatically. Since a couple of years we that fore reduced our efforts preparing and submitting proposals within EU programs. We highly appreciate this initiative and hope in a simplification and increase in transparency of the funding process. 12 Apr 00:03 Germany Technische Universität München, Insttute for Data Processing Klaus Diepold such a motion is long overdue and would represent a major step forward in research funding policies; currently the administrative burden is often so high that universities can not act as coordinators for projects anymore; furthermore, the project proposals increasingly deviate from reality as many things are written because they are expected from the process and not because project proposers have a plan: 18 Mar 16:22 Germany TU Berlin Jan Domhardt Bureaucracy takes too much time and nerves - simplify it now! 18 Mar 16:39 Germany TU Berlin Vincent Zander Stop the bureaucrats, now! 30 Apr 13:54 Germany TU Darmstadt Martin Ziegler May I suggest to handle applications for EU money via each countrys local dedicated science funding agency (e.g. the very compentent DFG in case of Germany). 17 Mar 14:47 Germany TU Dortmund University Andrzej Górak I agree with the declaration. Let me state that - to my knowledge - simplification of the procedures depends not on Commission but on member states. Regards AGórak 30 Apr 13:48 Germany TU Dresden Franz Baader In addition to the burden that the bureaucratic overhead imposes on researchers, this also leads to worse rather than better control of the outcome of projects. What appears to count is - in the proposal phase: making big promises that can never be met - during the running project: writing long deliverables in time, without much concern about the quality of the content - after the project: making big claims about what was achieved, without much relationship to the actual achievements 24 Feb 11:08 Germany Tuebingen University, Faculty of Medicine Anita Meier-Kanke The same set of Rules of Participation should apply to all activities and all actors. Private Public Partnerships (JTI...) should also follow the common Rules of Participation in respect to IP Rights and funding. Public bodies should receive adequate funding. Funding for public bodies in JTIs should not be reduced. 18 May 15:48 Germany UFZ - Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research Josef Settele If everybody wants to profit from research one also has to share the risks - and innovative research needs high degrees of freedom and at the same time is risky. Providing scientists with unnecessary adminstrative burdens (like fixed numbers of working hours or time consuming technical reporting) is a waste of public resources and severly reduces our competitiveness. 8 Mar 09:55 Germany Uni Mannheim Matthias Krause I support this declaration strongly 6 Mar 09:16 Germany Universit Bonn Clemens Simmer The extremely simple procedures of the German Science Foundation (DFG) are an excellent example for how slimly research projects can be administered. 9 Jun 12:26 Germany Universitaet Flensburg Olaf Jaekel I couldnt agree more. 21 Mar 09:33 Germany Universitaet Stuttgart Claus-Dieter Munz I agree that the administrative burden and the financial regulation of European research funding should be simplified. 3 Mar 16:08 Germany Universitaet zu Luebeck Jens Christian Claussen The German DPG shows how research funding can work quite well. Europe could copy this role model. If EU wants to strategically strengthen certain areas, it may reward scientists or groups actively by research prizes. Enveloping a 4-page proposal by 60 pages EU-wording is not effective. Thank you for this initiative. 22 Feb 17:43 Germany Universitaetsklinikum Bonn Achim Horauf I think 2 administrative issues should be modified for the future: 1) Stop the requests for financial details that should be dealt with in auditing processes which are regularly due anyway (i.e., avoid double auditing) 2) Stop constant changing of reporting rules 9 Mar 13:04 Germany Universität Bielefeld Martin Kuzek I agree. There is to much administrational regulation, which is causing a lot of unnecessary bureaucratic work for the scientists, so that there is not enough time for the real scientific work. This is totally disfunctional und limiting the scientific advance in Europe. 30 Apr 10:21 Germany Universität Bremen John Bateman I have been involved in a variety of EU funding instruments over the past 20 years. The non-research orientation and criteria now applied in many (especially larger) EU projects is of serious concern: the level of scientific expertise in the review process can also sometimes be wanting. The focus of a reporting-mentality that ticks off topics in projects according to poorly conceived numerical criteria and conformance to paragraphs in contracts is not commensurate with guranteeing that the international state of the art in research areas has been adequately responded to and incoporated. All of these concerns support the need for a significant simplication and refocus on research excellence in EU research funding. 1 May 11:58 Germany Universität Erfurt Christian Lehmann The amount of bureaucracy involved in submitting a grant proposal is awesome. Especially for the humanities, where the amount of project funding asked for and expected is much lower than in the technical disciplines, the benefit-cost ratio, coupled with the ridiculously low chance of actually receiving a grant, is just daunting. The current EU regulations favor science-businessmen instead of serious researchers. 1 Mar 11:01 Germany Universität Gießen Klaus Föhl At my previous post in a UK university, I had to deputise in our EU project administration. I observed that administrative staff without research background was even more helpless in handling affairs, and we as the researchers had to spend our quality time in sorting out and rectifying all the administrative aspects. 11 Mar 12:42 Germany Universitat Hamburg Cornelius Weber Dont misunderstand this petition to make changes in one year just to reverse them in another year. Frequent changes in regulations make things even worse. Make things simple and keep them that way! 22 Feb 19:06 Germany Universität Koblenz-Landau Klaus G. Troitzsch In my view, precise auditing of financial details has often seemed to be more important than evaluating the scientific results of the research. Any effort saved in the simplification of the financial precedures should be devoted to a more intensive reviewing of project results. 23 Mar 12:30 Germany Universität Konstanz Suzanne Kadereit The submission process is disproportionately complicated and impossible for someone with grant experience but who has never submitted at the EU. Many grants with potentially good research proposals are not even reviewed because the forms are not filled out properly. The ensuing scientific paperwork is too time consuming and distracts from actually performing the work and the financial paper work is too demanding and small institutions do not have the resources to dedicate a person to EU grant administration. And the requirement to fill out time sheets is simply preposterous and demeaning. Even more preposterous is the requirement for registering with passport number, birth date/place if one wants to VOLUNTEER for the tedious job of grant reviewer. The EU should try to emulate the NIH grant application/handling format. 4 Mar 14:12 Germany Universität Leipzig Rudolf Rübsamen Some of the programs are even besides reality 9 Mar 11:11 Germany Universität Leipzig Sören Auer I would like to see more openness and transparency in research funding and facilitation of accountability on the researchers side. An approach for realizing this is described in: http://www.informatik.uni-leipzig.de/~auer/publication/OpenScience.pdf 3 Mar 20:49 Germany Universität Regensburg Alf Zimmer The major threats for sustainable innovation are the prescription of politically motivated research themes and the incentives for risk free research, namely where the outcome is already implied in the proposal. This, together with the bibliometric data as the basis for evaluation leads to an exclusively quantitative increase but not to knowledge in the sense of information checked by critical judgment. 23 Feb 11:20 Germany Universität Tübingen, Deutschland Carsten Köhler I refer to my speach Wissenschaftskompetenz und deren Rahmenbedingungen : http://www.medizin.uni-tuebingen.de/Zuweiser/Kliniken/Medizinische_Klinik-p-797/Tropenmedizin/Kompetenzzentrum.html 30 Apr 17:48 Germany University and State Library of Goettingen (SUB) Ralf Stockmann This is oh so true. 9 Mar 23:53 Germany University Bremen Georg Spoettl confirm the arguments - mistrust drives the research funding, trust is required - adinistrations dominats, not research 5 Jun 02:31 Germany University Erlangen-Nürnberg Bastian Bansemir I am very grateful for German and European funding, as my own working place is funded. However, a great amount of time is dedicated to administration. At least two weeks each year are solely spent on reports for several different institutions. Instead of administrating work, we should be able to invest as much time as possible to do research. Therefore I support this declaration with emphasis. 24 Mar 14:59 Germany University Eye Hospital Tim Krohne The burocratic burden prevents me from applying for EU research grants. 19 Mar 23:12 Germany University Freiburg Klaus Piontek Too much effort, time and money is wasted just for the application and administration of EU-grants. This should rather used for the actual target, the research and development. 3 Mar 19:04 Germany University Hamburg Wilhelm Schäfer This bureaucracy kills initiative 30 Apr 14:44 Germany University Hospital Aachen, RWTH Aachen University Stefan Uhlig I have not yet seen any solid non-anecdotal evidence that the framework program has helped to promote science, european collaboration or the european industry. In the absence of such evidence I argue that most of the framework money has been spent in vain. The ERC is going the right way and a big portion of the the framework money should be given to the ERC. 19 May 23:02 Germany University of Bayreuth Sigrid Liede-Schumann In order to learn how to apply for EU funding, I had to attend workshops of several days. The university has a person solely for help with writing and administrating EU grants. Nevertheless, only a very few dogged individuals, not necessarily the best researchers but sure the ones best versed in following bureaucratic rules dare to apply for support. If the EU is interested in giving money to the best researcher, the support system needs to change dramatically. 4 Mar 12:02 Germany University of Bielefeld Eberhard Neumann I had many painful experience with overdone EU grant administration. 2 May 15:52 Germany University of Bremen Christian Freksa Scientific considerations must gain over administrative considerations; otherwise much tax money will be wasted. 16 Feb 09:23 Germany University of Cologne Marcel Bucher My wish for European scientists includes more financial support of basic science with less bureaucracy, and as a result, more investment in innovative scientists than administrative personel. Scientific innovation often results from unexpected findings as a product of hard scientific work and critical thinking. This is a major driver of developing societies. 31 Mar 18:13 Germany University of Erlangen-Nuremberg Florian Marquardt Hold us accountable for spending taxpayer money reasonably, but not by requiring a lot of forms to be filled in. Rather, use peer review, have a look at past and present research results, and employ common sense cross checks. 9 Jun 14:20 Germany University of Flensburg A. Willi Petersen Very good and great initiative, because I totally agree. The project administration (some finance handbooks with over 100 pages ... awful) becomes more and more no sense and the work is horrible and in the last years I stoped therefore my european project activities! 16 Mar 13:30 Germany University of Freiburg Ralf Reski With the current burden it is nearly impossible for an University group to co-ordinate an EU-consortium. 18 Feb 19:33 Germany University of Göttingen Andrea Polle It is urgently required that the financial and scientific administration of EU projects becomes less bureaucratic. The admin is too time consuming. I suggest to define measurable goals and to negoiate for money which which should be alloted to these goal and not to time! Who cares about time in science???? 30 Apr 12:49 Germany University of Göttingen Daniel Jackson As a recent appointment to a German University of Excellence, I am constantly dismayed at the amount of paperwork that needs to be completed for the simplest of daily operations, let alone a more significant action such as hiring someone. Most of this paperwork seems to stem from the belief that all academics are either not mature enough to manage a research budget, or are corrupt. 5 Mar 12:30 Germany University of Hamburg Winfried Lamersdorf Especially academics at universities in Germany - with typically a comparably very high teaching load (an no reductions for EU projects) and too many administrative duties anyway - are in concrete danger not to be able anymore at all to cooperate in such EU projects! Motivation has already suffered a lot... 3 Mar 16:08 Germany University of Heidelberg, Medical Faculty Mannheim Martin Leverkus This is a very good initiative and relevant to all researchers in Europe. 6 Mar 15:01 Germany University of Kassel Günter Kompa I fully support this action! 25 Feb 12:35 Germany University of Konstanz Angelos Giannakopoulos Thanks for this initiative and your efforts towards simplification of administrative procedures within EU-funded research which should be considered as a very urgent issue in terms of securing a more effective and profound research work. 4 Mar 19:12 Germany University of Leipzig Pablo Esquinazi No way out. Either the EU recognizes that basic understanding, good and risky ideas are the mother of innovation and discovery or its money will be mostly used for a covered support of industrial research. As in several countries in Europa, not the intelligence and common sense fix the rules but bureaucrats. The bureaucracy of the EU projects is ridiculous and takes valuable time of the researchers. 4 Mar 14:20 Germany University of Mannheim Daniel Veit Dear Ladies and Gentlemen, having participated and coordinated several EC funded research projects, I do fully support this petition. Sincerely Daniel Veit 15 Mar 14:36 Germany University of Marburg Uwe Homberg It is ironic that in order to write a EU grant application, special training is required for understanding the regulations. The whole process needs to be severely simplified as exemplified by many national grant agencies. 30 Mar 10:14 Germany University of Munich (LMU) Ulrich Gerland I agree with the urgent need to reduce the amount of formalities in European funding. The time is better spent doing research and teaching. 7 Jun 21:07 Germany University of Munich (LMU) Martin Parniske Increase the percentage of funding allocated to open calls. Reduce the percentage of calls that do require entrepreneurial involvement. Reduce thematically narrow, program-oriented funding. Remove funding targets dictated by lobby groups. Reduce the number of countries required in a consortium. The distribution of the European research funds should be the responsibility of science focused organizations like EMBO. 4 Jun 19:00 Germany University of Munich, Biocenter Michael Boshart The administrative part of the applications should be drastically reduced and at the same time scientific quality criteria should the same or higher as for national funding, e.g. DFG in Germany. 5 Jun 10:16 Germany University of Munich, LMU Albrecht Schnabel Dear Sir, dear Madam, dear Máire Geoghegan-Quinn, i want to congratulate you for your effort to simplify and clarify the application for funds in the EU. Only thereby, it will be possible to have all the ideas and the complete creative input of the millions of people living in the EU. Please carry on with your effort to make the scientific projects in the European Community as excellent as they can be, by opening the doors and by bringing more transparency about the allocation of funds to as many people as possible. Thank you. 4 Mar 09:41 Germany University of Oldenburg Oliver-D. Finch Make it easier! 4 Mar 14:09 Germany University of Oldenburg Henrik Mouritsen As long as I can get the funding from somewhere less burocratic, I do not even consider making EU applications. It is simply so burocratically ridiculous that the time wasted on burocracy about equals the amount of time one can spend on research. Signed: A formed EU Competition for young scientist first prize winner. 3 Mar 17:13 Germany University of Paderborn Jürgen Mimkes I support the declaration for less red tape in EU research funding. 21 May 08:28 Germany University of Passau, Research Campus Reinhart Schwaiberger Simplify the modalities for SMEs to join the European Research Programs! 25 May 12:22 Germany University of Regensburg Guenther Bayreuther The enormous misproportion between cost and benefit for most scientists and their organisations connected with applications to the EU for funding of research must be drastically improved by reducing the formal requirements and bureaucracy - of course within appropriate, reasonable and fair rules. 19 Mar 15:19 Germany University of the Bundeswehr Munich Michael Pfitzner Requests for extensive deliverable reports by the EU often reduce possible outcome of the project due to the time spent for the preparation of these reports. The time spent for administrative work within a project should stay at a small fraction of the total research time. 18 Mar 12:11 Germany University of Tübingen Hans-Georg Rammensee The German Research Council (DFG) has the most reasonable grant system I know of - with little administrative burden. EU should adapt part of it. A principle problem of the present EU system is the concentration on calls describing particular fields of research, sometimes rather narrow. Such calls appear to be the results of lobbying, something active and productive scientists should not and mostly do not want to do. I recommend to completely abandon all kind of narrow thematic calls; if politically required, focussing could be channeled by just indicating the area to be covered - eg., cancer, new energies, infectious disease, environment ... 1 Apr 20:51 Germany University of Tübingen Jörg Strübing The nightmare is not only the European Research Bureaucracy but also - at least in Germany - the ever growing amount of administrative routines in all parts of university. 16 Feb 13:45 Germany Virtual Dimension Center (VDC) Christoph Runde we appreciate this intitiative 26 Mar 20:32 Germany WZB Tim Flink Cutting Brussels red-tape has been a continuous pledge by researchers ever since the establishment of the FPs and its precursors since the 1980s. The policy process leading towards the European Research Council in 2007 was partly a response to this upswelling of the scientific community with the bureaucratic burden, and the artificial justification of everything else but science. While the scientific reputation of running EU projects has increased, theres still a bitter taste to it. 14 Feb 18:49 Germany Zentrum für Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft Manfred Krifka Take as a model the procedure of the ESF, which -- at least for Germany -- does not appear overly bureaucratic. 5 Mar 10:43 Germany Zentrum für Molekulare Biologie Heidelberg, DKFZ-ZMBH AAlliance Christine Clayton After coordinating an FP7 application which was very highly rated but not funded, I have vowed never to coordinate again. The complicated forms demanded endless repetition and appeared to be designed for industrial projects with predictable outcomes; the need for industrial partners kills early-stage basic research. The project is now funded from several other, much less bureaucratic agencies so in retrospect, failing to get EU funding was a lucky escape. 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