So far Wageningen UR and partners have submitted more than 150 proposals to Horizon 2020. Of these, 33 have been accepted, a little over 20 percent. In previous years an average of three or four out of ten proposals were successful. Peter Jongebloed, who supports researchers at Wageningen UR in submitting research proposals, has an explanation for the lower success rate. ‘It is a much more competitive programme. All over Europe people are investing in writing strong proposals, because everyone is looking to Brussels for funding now that national research funding is under pressure.’
Less European funding
The average success rate of research proposals submitted to the European research and innovation programme Horizon 2020 is considerably lower than for the previous European programme FP7.