21 May 2026
The Guild publishes its vision of Widening Participation and Spreading Excellence in FP10
On 21 May 2026, The Guild of European Research-Intensive Universities published its vision for Widening Participation and Spreading Excellence in FP10. The Guild's member universities welcome the Commission’s continued commitment to strengthen R&I capacity across Europe and the allocation of 3,3% of the proposed FP10 budget to widening measures.
The association points out that although participation of Widening countries in Horizon Europe has increased and average success rates of applications from Widening and non-Widening Member States are converging, underperformance remains striking in key parts of the programme, notably the European Research Council (ERC) and European Innovation Council (EIC). It asks what level of participation would be considered to be sufficient.
The Guild also states that the most striking R&I gap is within the group of Widening countries itself. It therefore welcome the distinction between Widening and Transition countries as proposed by the Commission, but is critical of the fact that the EC proposal does not offer a phase-out vision for Transition countries. At the same time, the association believes that both country categories would benefit from measures that focus on building research excellence.
The Guild's vision paper therefore makes the following recommendations for Widening Participation in FP10:
- Make explicit FP10’s commitment to Widening Participation
- Conditionality to access Widening funding should be clarified
- Improve the indicators to determine Widening/Transition countries
- Introduce a phase-out plan for Transition countries
- Invest in instruments with proven added value
- Mainstream examples of synergies with other funding instruments
- Award the MSCA label to ERA Fellowships
- Use Widening budget to support excellent proposals under ERC and EIC
- Strengthen COST to the benefit of researchers and improve funding rules
- Align appointment rules and introduce evaluation for COST Management Committee members
- Boost talent interaction through COST with researchers worldwide
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