Innovative medicines initiative receives further drubbing
League of European Research Universities calls for reform of IMI scheme
More criticism has been levelled at the European Union’s (EU) Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI), this time from the League of European Research Universities (LERU), representing major research institutions such as Britain’s Oxford and Cambridge universities.
LERU is calling for reforms to the scheme, warning that its weak funding levels for indirect research costs will risk universities losing money.
‘Currently the IMI-financial rules deviate from the usual FP7 [the EU’s Seventh Framework Programme for research] mechanism as they only provide a capped 20% indirect cost rate,’ said LERU. There is also a 75% reimbursement rate for projects, which ‘results in loss‑making projects’.
‘We propose that the funding of universities and research organisations in IMI be adjusted at the very least to be in line with FP7 rules,’ LERU added.
The organisation also criticised the IMI’s weak intellectual property rights protection.
‘The wording clearly anticipates that academic partners would just assign ownership…to the [commercial] partners,’ it said.