Substantial cuts in the proposed agency's budget would limit its scope.

The European Commission on 18 July announced the first scientific council for the European Research Council (ERC) but researchers are increasingly concerned that the agency may not materialize if EU leaders cannot reach an agreement over the budget.

Discussions about the ERC as an agency to fund basic research began in 2002. The ERC was initially seen as functioning independently, but over time it became clear that its funds would best be channeled through the commission. In April, the commission unveiled its Seventh Framework Programme (FP7), which doubled research spending up to €73 billion by 2013, a move widely seen as Europe's attempt to catch up to the US.

We have created a lot of expectations among the scientific community and don't want to disappoint them. Achilleas Mitsos, European Commission

The commission, which had initially opposed plans for an ERC, also set aside $13.5 billion to fund the ERC. But disagreements about the overall budget of the FP7 doomed that plan's prospects from the beginning. In early June, Luxembourg, which held the EU presidency until 30 June, proposed a 40% cut in the FP7 budget. The following week, a two-day budget meeting in Brussels collapsed, leaving the both the FP7 and the ERC in limbo.

Achilleas Mitsos, head of the commission's Directorate General of Research, says nothing has yet been finalized. “We have created a lot of expectations among the scientific community and don't want to disappoint them,” he told Nature Medicine. But Octavi Quintana-Trías, head of health at the Directorate, says that if substantial cuts are imposed, the commission may limit the research topics covered by the ERC, advertise projects once every two or three years instead of every year, or only fund projects that encompass at least three countries in order to minimize expenses.

John Marks, director of science and strategy at the European Science Foundation, says all three possibilities are “undesirable.” Restricting research topics “creates the possibilities for political influencing of the choice of topics,” he notes. Instead, he says, it might be better to limit grants to scientists who have, for example, completed between two and six years of postdoctoral training.

The Initiative for Science in Europe, established in 2002 and representing more than 50 European research organizations that support the ERC, on 30 June sent an appeal to the commission's top authorities. “[The ERC budget] should quickly become of the order of the budget of the larger national research councils, otherwise its impact would not be felt,” it said. “The member states must realize that they cannot be penny-wise and pound-foolish.”

It is important for the ERC to be launched, adds Ernst-Ludwig Winnacker, former president of the European Heads of Research Councils—even if only with reduced funds.