Answer given by Ms Gabriel on behalf of the European Commission
14.9.2021
1. EU funding has been allocated to the organisations mentioned by the Honourable Member as follows: since 2014, the European Research Council provided funding of EUR 2,08 million[1] to the Wellcome Trust, as support to the Europe PubMed Central (PMC) initiative. Europe PMC, supported by more than 30 funding agencies from Europe and beyond, is a unique free of charge literature services platform that facilitates discovery and access to a worldwide collection of life science publications and preprints from trusted sources.
Since 2014, the Wuhan Institute of Virology received EUR 130 576,80 (2015) and EUR 88 433,75 (2019) as grants from the EU budget for participation in two Horizon 2020 projects in relation to the European Virus Archive (EVA)[2] to provide to European researchers non-infectious human serology samples (antibodies), which relate to human immune responses to viral pathogens[3]. The funding did not concern the COVID-19 causative Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2. The EU contribution to the Wuhan Institute of Virology does not cover any research activities.
The Intergovernmental Science‐Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services received EUR 4 million from Horizon 2020[4] to support its functioning and governance.
The other mentioned organisations have not received Horizon 2020 funding from the Commission.
2. No research on bat coronaviruses has been performed in the context of the projects funded under Horizon 2020.
- [1] Grant agreements: https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/632927; https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/699257; https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/101034194
- [2] Grant agreements: https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/653316; https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/871029
- [3] such as Severe Fever with Thrombocytopenia Syndrome Virus, Crimean-Congo Hemorrhagic Fever and Nipah
- [4] Grant agreement: https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/832892