H2020 Success Rate Down at 10,7% in 2015

The European Commission (EC) published an analysis of the first two years of the Horizon 2020 Programme (click HERE for the entire report).  To minimize the administrative burden imposed on the participants, EC has directed its efforts towards simplification, contributing to the number of applications increasing by 23.9% between 2014 and 2015 and increasing the share of new participants (incl. SMEs and large companies).  On the other hand, the success rates have dropped significantly, making the chances of obtaining funding about half they were in 7th Framework Programme (7FP). In 2015, the share of proposals receiving funding was only 10,7%, demonstrating and increasing number of high-quality proposals.

Some of the other report key takeouts:

• In 2015, Austrian institutions had the highest success rate (13,9%), followed by Belgian and Irish organizations
• In 2015, countries with the lowest success rates were Bulgaria (5,6%), Latvia and Hungary
• A country with the most significant drop in the success rate between 2014 and 2015 is Latvia with 16,7% to 6,1% decrease
• Since Horizon 2020 began, more than 39% of all applications came from university candidates, 35.2% from the private sector and 18.4% from research organisations
• In LEIT and social challenges SMEs have received 23.7% of funding overall, and made up 27.6% of participations
• Submissions from the US, China, Canada and Australia make up almost half of all successful applications from outside Europe
• Time-to-grant has shortened significantly compared to 7FP, decreasing from 303 days in 7FP to 184,9 in 2015 H2020