Observers hope scrapping financial audits could lead other funders to cut down on research grant bureaucracy.
At the end of October, the European Commission made an announcement that could strike a significant blow against some of the most hated research bureaucracy in academia.
From next year, Horizon 2020, the European Union’s €80 billion (£70.6 billion) research and investment programme, will pilot simply giving researchers a “lump sum” to carry out their projects, meaning “no actual cost reporting, no time sheets and no financial audits” to complete.
By David Matthews  Twitter: @DavidMJourno  david.matthews@timeshighereducation.com