ABSTRACT
Research and technological development policy (RTD) has been part of the European Community remit since its foundation in 1957. Whereas the 1986 Single European Act already put more emphasis on research and development (R&D), it was not until the 1997 Amsterdam Treaty that conducting research policy and implementing Framework Programmes (FP) 1 to support European research through funding were explicitly integrated in the EU mandate. Implemented by the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Research and Innovation (DG RTD; now renamed Innovation, Research, Culture, Education and Youth), the FPs operationalise this policy, with budget allocations steadily increasing since their launch in 1984. While FP1 (1984–1988) had a budget of 3.8 billion euro, that of the current FP, Horizon 2020, (2014–2020) amounts to 77 billion euro. The proposed budget for the next FP, Horizon Europe, is 94.1 billion euro, though an important #EUInvestInKnowledge call has been published in July 2019 to increase it to at least 120 billion euro. Importantly, DG RTD has not been doing gender budgeting, failing to implement the 2017 recommendations of the European Parliament (IPOL_STU(2019)621801). Furthermore, only a tiny portion of the budget is allocated specifically to projects advancing gender equality in research.
