Horizon 2020, the European Union's research funding program, is coming to an end, and Nature News has examined which countries received the most funds.
Horizon 2020 launched in 2014 and provided about €60 billion over seven years in funding. Nature News reports that Germany, France, and the UK together received the lion's share of that funding, a combined total of more than €22 billion. Germany received nearly 15 percent of Horizon 2020 funding, though Nature News notes that Germany contributes 20 percent of the overall EU budget, while France received about 11 percent of the funding, while contributing 17 percent of the EU budget.
Meanwhile, it adds that the UK received nearly 13 percent of the Horizon 2020 budget, while it contributed about 11 percent of the overall EU budget. Additionally, Nature News notes that about a fifth of grants from the European Research Council had a PI at a UK institution.
But as the UK has left the European Union, its role in the successor to Horizon 2020, the €85 Horizon Europe research program, is unclear. According to Nature News, UK politicians have said they wish to participate as an associated member, like Switzerland, Norway, and Israel do.