Bid to save stand-alone EU successor to Horizon Europe

A last-ditch attempt has been launched to save a stand-alone European Union Framework Programme for research and innovation to take over from the Horizon Europe programme in three years’ time.

Every higher education institution leader in Europe is being asked to back the campaign in a blitz of emails sent to over 800 European university leaders on 6 March by the League of European Research Universities (LERU) and The Guild of European Research-Intensive Universities.

The direct appeal calls on university rectors and higher education leaders to sign an open letter to the quartet of European Union (EU) policy and political chiefs urging them to ensure the continuation of a stand-alone budget for research and innovation when they make decisions about the shape and size of the next multiannual financial settlement to take Europe into the next decade.

Decisions in next few months

Those decisions could come in the next few months, and many in the European research community fear that Ursula von der Leyen, the all-powerful president of the European Commission (the EU’s executive arm), has already made up her mind that she wants to see Horizon Europe swallowed up in a giant competitiveness superfund, designed as a catch-all to help Europe catch up with the giant and growing economies of the United States and China by focusing on applied research and innovation.

In the appeal by Linda Doyle, chair of LERU and president and provost of Trinity College Dublin, and Anders Hagfeldt, chair of The Guild and vice-chancellor of Uppsala University, Sweden, the pair invite fellow university rectors and presidents to “support a cutting-edge successor to Horizon Europe, a free-standing, excellence-focused, and impactful Framework Programme 10 (FP10)”.

They say that a number of organisations, including CESAER, Coimbra Group, European University Association (EUA), German Rectors’ Conference (HRK), German U-15, KU Leuven Association, Russell Group in the UK, Swissuniversities, TU9 – German Universities of Technology, UNICA Network, and Yerun, have already pledged their backing.

The campaign is running alongside the European Commission’s consultation process about the EU’s next long-term budget, which runs until 6 May 2025.

‘Preserve and strengthen’

Doyle and Hagfeldt say they want to “preserve and strengthen what makes the EU’s research programmes so distinctive”, namely:

• Scientific excellence across Europe, along the entire research continuum;

• Instruments that complement each other;

• Instruments that are the envy of the world, including an autonomous European Research Council, and the Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions; and

• Our capacity for international collaboration with strong associated countries, including the EEA, UK, and Switzerland, but also partners further afield.

They finish their appeal for support by saying: “If the EU wants to strengthen Europe’s competitiveness and address its key ambitions (including its green deal objectives and societal challenges), it needs to ensure that FP10 builds on, and supports, the research excellence of Europe’s universities.

“As the window [for] expressing our views to influence the composition of the next programme for research and innovation is closing fast, we hope you feel you can sign this open letter as soon as possible.”

The letter is addressed to Roberta Metsola, the European Parliament’s president; António Costa, president of the European Council (which brings together the leaders of the EU member states); Donald Tusk, the Polish prime minister (who is the current rotating chair of the Council of the European Union), and Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission president.

At a briefing for European science and research media correspondents on 6 March, Professor Kurt Deketelaere, secretary-general of LERU, said it seems European commissioners, with the exception of Ekaterina Zaharieva (the EU commissioner for start-ups, research and innovation), are coming down against a stand-alone programme for research and innovation in the next long-term budget, to run from 2028 to 2034.

Sidelining ‘blue-sky research’

Deketelaere suggested von der Leyen and her allies want to “sideline blue sky research” and focus attention on applied research and innovation for short-term gain in the bid to close the gap between the EU and the US and China.

Deketelaere said: “We are not against applied research, and we’re not against innovation … but this is a plea to continue the balanced approach that we have seen for decades at the EU level.

“What we are worried about is the complete disregard of basic research.”

Suspicion was first raised that something was up when von der Leyen announced her new team of Commissioners and their responsibilities last September, as University World News reported.

No one appeared to have responsibility for the next framework programme to take over from the €93.5 billion (US$104.5 billion) Horizon Europe R&D programme, which ends in 2027.

There were also concerns across the research community that any chance of doubling the budget for research and innovation to around €200 billion in the next long-term budget was only likely to come if Horizon Europe and other EU R&I instruments were subsumed within a giant competitiveness super fund in the next multiannual financial framework, as University World News reported last autumn.

All is not lost

Professor Jan Palmowski, secretary-general of The Guild of European Research-Intensive Universities, stressed at the media briefing that all is not lost.

He said: “This is not about fighting some rearguard action but about proposing to the Commission how research and innovation best serve its goals and how we are aligned with some of the key recommendations of the reports (to the Commission by former European Central Bank president and former Italian prime minister, Mario Draghi, and former Portuguese science minister Manuel Heitor).

Both of these reports took “breakthrough research as seriously as innovation”, said Palmowski, who said both were vital requirements if Europe is to catch up with the US and China.

Deketelaere said that while the Commission can make recommendations about the future of research and innovation and suggest whether there will be a follow-on framework programme to Horizon Europe, the final decisions will be taken by leaders of EU member states meeting in the European Council and by members of the European Parliament.

He claimed that more and more countries are coming out in support of a Framework Programme (FP10), including Austria and probably Germany, which makes the largest contribution to the EU budget, when it finalises its new coalition government, as well as France, Sweden, and Denmark.

However, Deketelaere accepted that Finland was “much more pro-innovation and applied research”.

Parliamentary recommendation

The European Parliament’s Committee on Industry, Research and Energy rapporteur, Christian Ehler, produced a detailed list of recommendations on the future of the 10th Research Framework Programme in a report published in February 2025.

This included recommendations for a stand-alone EU programme and called on the Commission to “ensure user-orientated, science-led, effective, and efficient implementation of the programme” based on “the principle of self-governance, through which recognised, independent specialists from the relevant field that act in the public interest can advise on how research and innovation can best contribute to the achievement of the policy priorities set by policy-makers”.

In an explanatory statement, the document says that FP10 needs to focus on funding science, research, and innovation projects at the frontiers of knowledge and technology.

“It needs to fund science and innovation that goes beyond the wildest imaginations of policy-makers, and that creates solutions we never thought of for problems we have not yet identified.

“Achieving this requires putting Europe’s scientists, researchers, and innovators in the driving seat, shaping the programming and selecting the best projects. Centralising the programming in a Competitiveness Fund would achieve the opposite.

“While FP10 can and will play a crucial role for EU competitiveness, it should not be driven by it, it should be driven by science, research, and deep-tech entrepreneurs.”

EUA backs stand-alone programme

The European University Association is also backing the open letter to EU policy and political chiefs, with EUA President Josep M Garrell posting on X: “It is time to join forces and explain – loud and clear – why nurturing Europe’s scientific excellence is a prerequisite for Europe’s competitiveness.”

A spokesperson for the European University Association (EUA) told University World News: “It emphasises the urgency of securing a stand-alone programme amidst growing concerns over the potential integration of FP10 into the proposed European Competitiveness Fund.

“As the European R&I community remains deeply concerned about the implications of these plans, the letter serves as a timely call for EU institutions to reaffirm their commitment to a programme that prioritises excellence, independence, and the long-term advancement of Europe’s research and innovation capabilities,” the spokesperson said.

Impact beyond EU member states

Palmowski said another reason why policy-makers should come down in favour of FP10 as the successor to Horizon Europe was the need to offer associated countries outside the EU, like Switzerland and the UK, something to affiliate to when the current programme comes to an end in 2028.

“If the framework programme is absorbed into a European competitiveness fund, the issue of association becomes much more problematic for these countries.”

“So, this issue goes beyond the 27 countries in the EU,” said Palmowski.

Ben Moore, head of policy (international) at the Russell Group of research-intensive universities in the UK, told University World News: “Programmes like Horizon Europe and the proposed Framework Programme 10 bring huge advantages for the UK.

“The R&D partnerships they support not only boost jobs and opportunity across the country but also help us to remain at the forefront of key advances like AI, health research and security.

“Our EU counterparts have also benefited from collaboration, combining expertise to achieve more collectively than individual nations can alone.

“A stable future for R&D collaboration across our shared continent and beyond is vital so we can continue to build on previous successes.

“This should include a new research programme that supports the full pipeline of collaborative research so researchers can continue to make the breakthroughs that will help us tackle global societal challenges and meet our shared ambitions of growth and prosperity”.

Nic Mitchell is a UK-based freelance journalist and PR consultant specialising in European and international higher education. He blogs at www.delacourcommunications.com