Expert group report on how the EU funds research
A group of experts tasked with advising the European Commission on the next Framework Programme for research and innovation is recommending a major overhaul of EU funding instruments.
Their report, published today, urges the creation of an independent Industrial Competitiveness and Technology Council and a European Societal Challenges Council to steer collaborative research. That would mean the vast majority of the next programme, provisionally called Framework Programme 10 or FP10, would be managed outside of the Commission.
The group is also urging the overall R&I budget soar to €220 billion from €93.5 billion at present in a major effort to regain lost European competitiveness. It wants “dual-use” military-civilian innovations included, greater cooperation globally (including with China), an overhaul of how the Commission handles its grant paperwork, and much greater independence from Commission bureaucracy for its fundamental research and small-company innovation agencies.
All this by Brussels standards is a pretty radical wish list, that by no means is certain of adoption. But it appears in the midst of debates that could lead to the biggest overhaul of EU R&D funding since the Framework Programme began in 1984. It comes as some officials within the Commission are drawing up plans for even more radical changes, including bundling all R&I funds into an overarching competitiveness fund, as part of the next long-term budget to run from 2028 to 2034.
The group began its work in December 2023 after the Commission selected 15 experts from the worlds of research and industry. Their recommendations are expected to be influential in shaping the Commission’s proposal for FP10, to be presented in mid-2025.
The advisors suggest the final years of Horizon Europe should be used to test their ideas. “Most of these recommendations should be prepared from 2025,” the group’s chair, former Portuguese research minister Manuel Heitor, told Science|Business in an interview ahead of the report’s publication.
Read more about each of the group’s recommendations on sciencebusiness.net