The European Commission must back down over its research funding plans

Last week, the European Parliament (EP) threw down the gauntlet for the European Commission. Not only that, but European Union science ministers agreed with the MEPs. What will this mean for Commission president Ursula von der Leyen’s plans for a radical shake-up of European research and innovation funding?

While the details remain vague, von der Leyen would like to group together funding instruments – including for research and innovation – into a “European Competitiveness Fund”. The hope is that this would allow the Commission to be more agile and impactful in addressing Europe’s economic challenges and responding to crises.

By contrast, on 11 March the EP adopted a resolution – with a resounding majority of 472 versus 75 – that FP10, the next EU research and innovation (R&I) framework programme, must be “a stand-alone programme”. Accordingly, FP10 should be distinguished by more effective interdisciplinarity, the Parliament said – including the integration of social sciences and the humanities – and better connectivity between breakthrough research and breakthrough innovation.

Echoing key recommendations of the Heitor Report, the EP wants to see radical simplification for applicants and more expert-led (rather than bureaucratic) oversight of the instruments so that calls are closer to scientific frontiers and more attractive to applicants. And the parliament is clear about the value of international collaboration, demanding a clear strategy for third-country participation.

On the same day, EU R&I ministers unanimously agreed their “Warsaw Declaration”. While less explicit, it is in remarkable agreement with the EP. Both insist on a programme that is based on excellence, where awards are made on “open and fair” competition rather than political criteria.

They agree on the need to boost funding for the European Research Council and European Innovation Council and secure their autonomy. And both insist on the entire research continuum, from basic to applied, being funded. As the ministers note, FP10 should be a space for experimentation and risk-taking.

The battle lines are drawn, then, between the Commission leadership and its co-legislators, and they revolve around three central issues.

First, the points of departure are radically different. Against the alarmist rhetoric of the Commission (“The status quo is not an option”), the Warsaw Declaration recognises the 40-year-old framework programmes’ success in strengthening the economy, citizens’ well-being and common European values. As the MEP Christian Ehler put it in the press conference, programmes such as the European Research Council and the Quantum Flagship enable Europe to punch above its weight – this must not be destroyed.

Second, at least in the EP, there is a palpable sense of frustration about transparency and style. As Ehler noted, the Commission’s development of key strategies, such as its Competitiveness Compass, takes for granted that research and innovation will be part of a competitiveness fund, as if this were self-evident. But there has been absolutely no discussion with the co-legislators, let alone the stakeholder community, about what this would look like in practice. Is this because the Commission does not know? Or because it does not care about dialogue?

Third, while there is little argument that FP10 needs to be simplified, the European Council and the EP have a clear focus on simplifying the bureaucracy around the programmes. Neither has any sympathy for the Commission’s apparent intent to create a few directive instruments to support only its immediate economic priorities. As Ehler noted, it is precisely those calls in the challenge-led pillar of the current framework programme, Horizon Europe, that are being criticised for being too prescriptive and too focused on short-term priorities, attracting a relatively low number of excellent proposals.

At issue is a radically divergent vision of what an R&I framework programme can and should deliver. While all agree that FP10 should maximise its support for the EU’s competitiveness, the EP and Council also highlight the need to address a wider set of societal challenges. Setting out a more long-term perspective – the EP’s timeline is towards 2040 – the Declaration and the EP’s resolution clearly oppose, as Ehler put it, the Commission’s endeavour to narrow down the next framework programme to the large-scale funding of a few priorities for short-term political gains.

In the end, the Commission has the right to propose the regulation that determines the nature of FP10. But will the Commission leadership really want to risk being sent back to the drawing board at a time of such geopolitical certainty?

The gulf is wide, but not unbridgeable. Having a self-standing, excellence-based FP10 that supports Europe’s competitiveness by creating solutions for tomorrow does not exclude also having an effective scale-up programme for existing technologies. But this would not be an R&I programme. It must be complementary to FP10, not undercut it.

It is no exaggeration to say that, right now, the future of European research and innovation funding is at stake. The EU has stated explicitly that it seeks to align European and national research funding, so this new way of thinking at European level may, over time, be adopted by national governments, too.

That is why 32 academies of science and humanities have recently spoken out in defence of an ambitious FP10 that supports the full research and innovation continuum. And it is why a growing number of university presidents, along with rectors’ conferences across Europe, are similarly raising their voices, in an open letter initiated by the organisation I run, the Guild of European Research-Intensive Universities, and the League of European Research Universities.

We all share an interest in Europe having the most impactful R&I programme possible. The time for dialogue on how to make this happen must start now.

Jan Palmowski is secretary general of the Guild of European Research-Intensive Universities.