In a letter the head of the European Commission, leaders of European scientific agencies say that cuts to the scientific budget will harm Europe's economic recovery, reports The Guardian. The European Union is set to decide its science budget for 2014 through 2020 this week, the article adds.
The Guardian notes that the EU has set aside €80 billion for its Horizon 2020 initiative to bolster research and innovation in the region, but that that figure is now under negotiation. Additionally, the article says that the European Life-science Infrastructure for Biological Information, or ELIXIR, program may also face funding cuts.
"Science leads the way out of recession, so cutting science budgets is most certainly not the way forward," Rolf Heuer, the director general of CERN and a signatory of the letter, tells The Guardian. "In times of recession, it is incumbent on the public sector to maintain the basic science base, ensuring that there is science for industry to apply."