The UK’s “Plan B” scheme to replace Horizon Europe should make funding allocations “more inclusive” by encouraging the participation of researchers from “less-resourced” universities, a study has suggested.
Criticising the current “excellence” focus of the European Union’s flagship research scheme, in which funding flows disproportionately to “closed clubs of regular participants”, the paper for the Higher Education Policy Institute (Hepi) suggests that a new domestic alternative should prioritise “support schemes for universities that tend to participate less to mitigate their cumulative disadvantages”, while calling for renewed efforts to anonymise peer review to “reduce or eliminate” bias faced by researchers from these institutions.
