A European Commission proposal seeks to divert funds from the Horizon 2020 program to a new scheme to boost the European economy and create jobs, the Guardian reports.
Horizon 2020, European Union's research and innovation initiative, is worth some £67 billion (about $101 billion) over the next six years, and the EC proposal would move a portion of those funds to the new European Fund for Strategic Investments.
Christopher Snowden, president of Universities UK and the vice chancellor of the University of Surrey, tells the Guardian that cutting science funding would harm the European, and British, research enterprise.
"Our competitors outside the EU are investing in, not cutting, research," Snowden says. "China's investment in research, for example, has increased dramatically in recent years, and it now spends a greater proportion of its GDP on research and development than the UK."
The Guardian notes that the proposal is expected to pass.