(Science|Business) Universities build policy expertise to meet growing role in funding

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EU policy priorities are increasingly influential when it comes to research funding decisions, so some universities are responding by building policy expertise in-house. One example is the University of Lorraine, which has recruited a team of six European policy officers to support grant bids and building new research collaborations.

The development is part of a 10-year project designed to reinforce the European impact of Lorraine and its academic partners in the region, which is backed by €200 million from the France 2030 investment plan.

“The key structural choice of the project was the creation of a team dedicated to the establishment’s influence and European positioning,” said Nicolas Dupuy, deputy director of the European strategy support office.

This comes at a time when the French government has put a dent in national higher education and research budgets, although Dupuy says that Lorraine’s strategy is not a direct response to this development. “Rather, it is viewed as a strategic lever for our institution amidst increasingly tight budgetary constraints, enabling us to align with future trends in national funding,” he added. “It also allows us to anticipate the budgetary changes and constraints facing French universities.”

Each policy officer covers a domain that maps onto Lorraine’s priorities, and Horizon Europe’s collaborative research themes: natural resources and environment; energy and decarbonisation; society; industry 5.0 and digital; health; and the materials value chain.

Arthur Olivier, for instance, specialises in energy and decarbonisation. He represents the scientific community of the university across various networks, ranging from the Clean Hydrogen Partnership and the European Energy Research Alliance, to the National Climate and Energy Thematic Group of the current Horizon Europe.

“My work mainly involves the upstream phase: helping interested researchers identify promising topics at the European level, and amending or co-drafting the [funding] proposals, so that they align with our priorities in Lorraine,” he said.

Beyond this, there is a more traditional aspect to his job. “Like many players in the Brussels bubble, I have a monitoring and analysis role,” he went on. This implies contributing to EU consultations and collecting position papers, draft regulatory proposals and other relevant documents “to better understand the emerging political trends in my field.”

The policy officers work together with academics on Lorraine’s European strategy committee, such as Benoît Iung, professor of prognostics and health management, who follows the industry 5.0 theme. He described the process as one of synergy, with the policy officers bringing a strategic perspective to match the disciplinary knowledge of the academics.

“I have the knowledge to determine the scope of a call [for proposals], know whom to contact for details, and assess whether a particular call is a good fit,” he told Science|Business. 

It has also been a learning process. “I see [the policy officers] share a great deal: thoughts, of course, but also many working methods,” Iung said. “This involves mapping out the labs, identifying key people, and taking stock of projects, whether they already exist, are underway or are in the proposal stage.”

Community engagement

While not unique within French universities, the Lorraine approach is still relatively unusual. According to Dupuy, such tasks are usually left to people working independently. “Another scenario involves universities that join one or two networks and only exert influence through those networks,” he said. “In all cases, these are often individuals quite high up in the hierarchy, but without an organisation capable of engaging a broad community of researchers.”

Exceptions include Sorbonne University, which employs European project officers to help researchers identify and apply to calls, and the University of Nice Côte d'Azur, whose Joint Europe Office serves as a one-stop shop for university staff and researchers. “But here again, resources are limited,” he said.

According to Iung, Lorraine’s efforts have already started to bear fruit. “I find myself talking to European partners I didn’t really know before, partners who now have a good idea of what is happening at the Lorraine site,” he said. “So, I feel that the site has generated comprehensive visibility.”

“It [also] opens up opportunities that didn’t exist before; and with more opportunities, we can highlight collaborations that might have otherwise gone unnoticed,” he went on.

Moving forward, the university wants to see its researchers involved in ever more European projects. It secured 54 grants worth €13.0 million in net EU funding under Horizon 2020, and has been awarded 51 grants worth €18.2 million under Horizon Europe so far. And the number of proposals that the university submitted with a coordination role increased by 69% between 2023-24 and 2024-25. 

And while Horizon Europe remains the main target, Dupuy expects the EU’s Erasmus+ education programme to play a larger role in its advocacy work in the future. “These two programmes are very strategic for us,” he said.