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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 Sweden62 comments. (Note: Some comments are not made public accessible.) 29 Apr 14:02 Sweden AASS, Örebro University Achim Lilienthal I am very happy with the administrational burden and the level of mutual trust in some projects. In my experience these things are often handled extremely well. I sign this declaration since I have also experienced severe outliers deviating strongly from the generally good impression. 9 Mar 12:12 Sweden Centek stefan dahlhielm As the objectives turn towards producing results rather than deliveries, the administrative burdon has to be relieved. 16 Feb 09:43 Sweden Chalmers Fredrik Höök I advice the commission to be inspired by the way some Scandinavian countries follow up on both small and large scale scientific programs. Scientific quality should be valued higher than the ability to meet deliverables defined prior to (often years…) project start up. The use of the funding, as long as it supports the goals of the program, should be more flexible than today. Successful projects should, after the half time evaluation, be able to seek additional funding for mobility between involved groups. 2 Mar 18:00 Sweden Chalmers Iltcho Angelov It is very important to reduce the bureaucracy in managing EU research projects, trust researchers and make things more efficient for researchers( not for bureaucrats). It is a general rule that bureaucracy is creating various administrative problems to support their structures and EU administration can show that it is not a classical bureaucratic machine, but a modern structure. 3 Mar 20:29 Sweden Chalmers University of Technology Claes Andersson Excellent initiative! Two things: 1) If there is one profession where one can trust that money will be spent on proper activities it would be science. Researchers are probably more likely to spend their private money on research than they are to misuse funds. 2) Is the increasing bureaucratization and control in response to anything factual? Were funds used for researchers sail boats, astronomical salaries? Has science, compared to other professions, stood out as one that hasnt delivered over the past centuries? I constantly try to get myself away from thinking how does this look in a proposal to thinking is this interesting? how do I think this should be done? We all know that although there is an overlap between these two perspectives, they are far, far from identical. 3 Mar 13:44 Sweden Department of Sociology, Umeå university Mattias Strandh I have had great experiences in several framework programmes and they definately bring a needed European dimension to research within my field. At the same time I have had some less pleasant experiences as well. These have invariably been directly or indirectly connected with the administrative burdens and rules that follow with framework programmes. At times this has led to substantially less research than would have been possible under a more pragmatic, flexible and regulated regime. 15 Mar 12:49 Sweden Dept of Zoology, University of Gothenburg Lotta Kvarnemo I have refrained from applying for funding from EU for years because of the red tape associated with it. Clearly Im not the only one who sees it as a problem! I hope the large number of signatures by prominent researchers will be taken very seriously by the European Council. 3 Mar 22:20 Sweden Karolinska Institute Pär Sparén The evaluation system for EU grants must become transparatory and based solely on scientific merits of proposed research projects. The administratrative efforts around ongoing EU funded research projects must be brought to a minimum to allow researchers to spend time and resources on producing valuable results. Scientific output from granted research projects should be the main indicator that the requirements are fulfilled. 10 Mar 13:10 Sweden Karolinska Institutet Tomas Ekström Most import is the willingness of ceratin risk taking and less political steering from the part of EU 11 Mar 16:52 Sweden Karolinska Institutet Per Hall I have co-ordinated 6 EC projects, ranging from 5FP to the current 7FP. It is NOT getting less complicated. Europe will never catch up with the US if we do not change the current routines. A good start would be to get rid of the Framework Programs. 3 Mar 15:57 Sweden Karolinska Institutet NOVUM, Department of Biosciences Rudolf Ladenstein Application for EU research funding has become a mardream! 12 Feb 19:06 Sweden Linkoping University Bohdan Sklepkovych Rather than a process of simplification and clarity - the programs/processes are becoming more fragmented and complicated, requiring, without any purpose or benefit, greater administration. 16 Mar 14:13 Sweden Linköping university Hans Holmén Administration should be a means to support research -- not research merely being an excuse to bureaucratize. 7 May 09:52 Sweden Lund Observatory Torben Andersen Couldnt agree more, after two projects we have had it ! 19 Feb 18:35 Sweden Lund University Ulf von Barth Scientists is the most scrutinized group of people in modern societies. Scientist are constantly under evaluation. Yet, since research is not profit driven, the risk of fraudulent behaviour or the misuse of funds among scientists is comparatively low. The severe scrutiny to which scientists are subject is an impediment to crativity and productivity and should be made less severe within the EU in order to increase the competitiveness of the Union. 3 Mar 18:17 Sweden Lund University Ola Wendt It is about time it becomes a bit sinmpler to do research on EU money! 4 Mar 13:41 Sweden Lund University Sara Linse Science will benefit from scientisst doing science instead of drowning in administration 16 Mar 08:14 Sweden Lund University Knut Deppert Today, we are not searching for new discoveries but for money. 7 May 11:21 Sweden Lund University Oxana Smirnova Research projects can and will lead to unpredictable results, therefore the strict EU rules on effort allocation and reporting are not appropriate, basically prohibiting research and forcing scientists to spend time on bureacracy. This must be changed, allowing freedom of research. Research projects must be allowed to fail: not every scientific study produces expected results, best results come completely unexpected. 2 Jul 11:53 Sweden Lund University Sindra Peterson Hear, hear! 3 Mar 23:52 Sweden Lunds university Lo Gorton This is a must for the future 4 Mar 09:03 Sweden Malmoe university Tomas Olofsson Make it easy, though reliable and trustful for applicants and coordinate one set of regulation within EU. 5 Mar 12:57 Sweden Royal Institute of Technology Peter Stilbs Todays EU research funding system is a disaster, and worse - it uses money, allocated from national research council areas. Its random incomprehensible criteria and procedures are dictated by bureucrats and politicians, and not by scientists. 17 Feb 20:32 Sweden Royal Institute of Technology Matthias Palmer I think the current strategy of submitting a range of deliverables to measure progress in a project takes to much time. Especially since they are seldom useful to a wider audience, or even your peers in the field. If progress could be measured more by published papers or working prototypes it could at least be a complementary approach. Today it seems you cannot escape a lengthy written deliverable no matter what, forcing you to loose focus on publishing papers or finetuning prototypes. 5 Mar 13:36 Sweden Royal Institute of technology Marcus Angelin Researchers should spend most of their time on research... 9 Mar 08:53 Sweden Royal Institute of Technology Lanru Jing Current administrative policy of EC research projects requires too many reports over too short interval periods. Focus should be placed on scientific quality and yields, based on peer reviewed international publications, which usually requires focused research over longer period. Non-essential reprotings, such as questionnaires, should be cancled and the required information can be combined within activity and management reprots at the final stage. Online reporting should be simplified. 5 Mar 13:16 Sweden Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) Martin Rahm Bureaucracy impedes progress, and should be reduced wherever possible. 4 Mar 07:32 Sweden SLU paul geladi For every day I do some meaningful work I have to spend a whole day doing meaningless paperwork. This should be stopped! 22 Mar 08:20 Sweden Stiftelsen Teknikdalen Erika Hinz We are absolutley positive about a simplification of EU-bureaucracy. Our experience is in the field of structual funds, interreg programs, CIP and other EU-financed activities. 1 Mar 09:28 Sweden Stockholm University Kevin Noone Research and innovation are not manufacturing processes. Unfortunately, the European Commission and many other funding agencies apply metrics and methods for administering and assessing research and innovation that come from the manufacturing sector. We must resist the temptation to apply the wrong assessment model in our frenzy to be able to quantify the results of investments in research and innovation. I and my colleagues support being accountable for our work; however, an appropriate model must be used to judge our accountability. The current system is counterproductive in this regard. 1 Mar 16:42 Sweden Stockholm University Zhe Zhao For the sake of saving our treasury time for science. 1 Mar 20:04 Sweden Stockholm University Radovan Krejci More attention should be paid to evaluation of meaningful scientific productivity instead of ever increasing limits and categorizations of expenses. These are associated with increased unproductive administration. To many limitations and categorization kills creativity and creativity is what science is about. 3 Mar 20:59 Sweden Stockholm University Elizabeth Thomson Could we point out to policy-makers that trust in science is institutionalized in our training and our practices for scientific and ethical review? It is also important to distinguish the intent of a grant (in which science develops rapidly with the field and may change radically with new discoveries) from that of a contract (where the funding authority has a specific task to be completed and is able to outline the task in great detail). The U.S. National Institutes of Health grant and contract mechanisms might be a useful model. In my experience, EC funding is based on a contract system while most of the research questions of interest would be better served by a grant system. 4 Mar 10:00 Sweden Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences Knut Wålstedt I especially find the administrative burden related to ERDF grants totally unacceptable. The rules are not only very time-consuming, they are often inconsistent and do often differ from program to program. We also often get different information from different actors within the same program. We need both simplification and coordination. 4 Mar 10:32 Sweden Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences Ingrid Ragnarsdotter Jajke I agree that the administration should be simplified 22 Apr 17:27 Sweden UGOT Suzanne Dickson I coordinate an EC 7th Framework project. Between being selected for funding and the contract being signed, over 9 months were spent negotiating, involving at least 9 person months effort (it could be double that if you include administrators as well as scientists). Our science did not improve by this exercise. It was a tremendous waste of resources. Moreover, by the time the project started, we had lost the competitive edge over US researchers as they beat us to publication in several sub-projects. I wholey support any initiative that reduces the administrative burden on scientists. The whole process was a paper exercise and does not change the research we will do. It was exhauting and unproductive and prevented us from getting on with the research. 31 May 11:14 Sweden Umea Plant Science Centre Monica Pacurar Please simplify the administrative procedure for research. 1 Mar 13:01 Sweden Umea university anita sellstedt I strongly recommend the EU administration to simplify the application procedure as soon as possible. 29 Apr 11:22 Sweden Umeå University Wolfgang Schröder More and more administartive work is put onto reserchers and less and less time is left for research. 4 Mar 09:03 Sweden Uniersity of Gothenbrug Roger Säljö European research and collaboration are severly hampered by bureaucratic practices which are highly demotivating and which present unnecessary hurdles. An endless flow of documents before, during and after projects for all parties introduces resistance to applying for European funding. In many cases, the best scholars abstain from applying since they can get funding locally. The screening process of who is a successful researcher works very well and is already built into the evaluation process of research through monitoring publications and other outcomes. There is no need to have this bureaucratic machinery. Simplify procedures and researchers will be even more committed to European collaboration. 5 Mar 11:00 Sweden University of Gävle Per Lindberg I was the Swedish part of the EU funded NEXT-study involving 10 countries. The administrative burden was much higher than the one from natinal resarch councils. For most of the participating researchers big finacial problems occurred as the final funding was not payed until some time after the study was finished. 22 Apr 17:58 Sweden University of Gothenburg Thrandur Björnsson Ive been participant and/or coordinator of RTD projects of the 4, 5, 6, and 7FP, and financial handling has become increasingly difficult. As a participant in a large 6FP project, Ive yet to receive final payments almost 2 years after I submitted my cost statements and audit certificate, probably because other partners (minor SMEs) in the project have not sent in their forms. At the beginning of the 7FP, there were long texts about increased trust, cutting of red tape etc, none of this has materialized. I say this as a coordinator of a large 7FP RTD project. 23 Apr 11:41 Sweden University of Gothenburg Margareta Ahlqwist The “paper exercise” (by post, by e-mail and the web) is tremendous, from proposal to negotiation and, not least, the reporting. It is necessary to reduce the administration in all these steps by a rational simplification that influences all levels of the staff at the Commission. 4 Mar 10:10 Sweden University West Stefan Christiernin Although I full-heartily agree with the need of international (european) collaboration, I think that our national economics science colleagues have proven over an dover again that it is large scale projects with broad perspectives - *without detailed control* - that in the long run generates technology, progress and, perhaps for the EU most importantly, economic growth. This is also the reason why president Barak Obama has announced a new deal in US science with less control and more freedom (because US was BNP wise more productive in research 30 years ago than today). I think it is necessary that researchers work together to solve the great challenges of the future. I also think its necessary to work together across the borders of companies and government universities. But I simply cannot believe that counting the exact number of hours or filing reports that has to be revised three times just to get it approved even if the hard data and results been approved and adopted a long time ago, will help the world become a better place. Im not against regulations or governance. Its needed - but we shouldnt overdo it, which we are right now. 12 Feb 13:56 Sweden Uppsala Universitet Katrin Lundstedt-Enkel Facilitate administration, reduce OH costs and give more funding directly to the researcher. 12 Feb 13:37 Sweden Uppsala University Björgvin Hjörvarsson We need to nurture the core activity of research and development. 12 Feb 13:54 Sweden Uppsala University Ted Morrow I experience the system as prohibitively complicated 12 Feb 14:33 Sweden Uppsala University Elisabeth Larsson Researchers should spend as much time as possible performing just research. 12 Feb 15:09 Sweden Uppsala University Hari Sharma I feel that EU research and co-operation including application process may be simplified. Anyway, research and data production is the aim of the EU and not the complication. To involve so many working hours for everything actually harms the researcher about their goals. Application process, funding process and release of grants may be simpler to work as this helps in hassle free research environment and productive atmosphere. 12 Feb 16:47 Sweden Uppsala University Ann-Christine Syvaänen I believe that smaller collaborative projects between European scientists would be the most cost-effective way of funding European research. Leading large projects with 10-20 partners requires a heavy adminstration. 14 Feb 11:31 Sweden Uppsala university Hedvig Ekerwald I have gone through the production of several applications and I have been the Swedish partner in one EU research project and I was terrified by the overload of administration (although I was happy for the research cooperation between the countries and the research results) 18 Mar 14:46 Sweden Uppsala University Anders Sjöborg It is possible to combine control of the use of taxpayers money with efficiency routines. 18 Mar 19:22 Sweden Uppsala university Elisabet Näsman Drawing on my experioence from applying for funding in international networks and comparative projects I strongly support this propsal to reduce the administrative work in the application processes. 3 May 19:26 Sweden Uppsala University Wang Yi Research is about thinking, not writing, counting and talking! 10 May 23:29 Sweden Uppsala University Tord Ekelöf I think it is relevant to note that the administrative work required to obtain research grants from by my national authorities and foundations is far less than that required to obtain grants provided by the EU, and yet, there is clearly no difference in the efficiency and reliability of the two schemes. Furthermore the counter financing of 50% or more required for nearly all EU grants, but not for national grants, is counterproductive, useless and demoralizing. By definition, all financing given to any organization executing research has been obtained by the organization to be used for for a certain purpose. We therefore all know that requesting, like EU does, that there be free funds made available by the research executing organization as counter financing for a certain EU projects is equivalent to requiring that the fund requester allocates to EU projects funds that have already before been allocated for other purposes. 17 Feb 08:28 Sweden Uppsala University, Department of Biochemistry and Organic chemistry Joseph Samec Let us do research, not begging. 3 Mar 22:40 Sweden Vectura Consulting AB Johan Granlund Many good research ideas never gets exploited, because of all the bureaucracy associated with applying for research funding. 26 Mar 10:59 Sweden Volvo Aero Robert Lundberg It is the opinion of Volvo Aero that the normal accounting methods that are used by the company and audited though the normal auditing procedures for the company should be approved for use also in EU funded R&D projects. 26 Mar 11:18 Sweden Volvo Aero Patrik Johansson It is my opinion that the normal accounting methods that are used by large companies and audited though the normal auditing procedures for those companies should be approved for use also in EU funded R&D projects 26 Mar 11:20 Sweden Volvo Aero Robert Limmergård Improvements has been done over the years to simplify the administrative procedures, however more is needed especially in regard to JTIs/Clean Sky and the introduction on reporting requirement that has been imposed. 26 Mar 21:19 Sweden Volvo Aero Bengt Pettersson More duct tape, less red tape = more growth! 27 Mar 08:45 Sweden Volvo Aero Corporation Magnus Hörnqvist It is my opinion that the normal accounting methods that are used by large companies and audited though the normal auditing procedures for those companies should be approved for use also in EU funded R&D projects. 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