The European Commission this month pledged a new package of €500 million for the period 2025-2027, part of which will be specifically earmarked for research projects with industrial applications.
President Ursula von der Leyen said the bloc needs to “stand for science” in a speech at the Sorbonne University in Paris, adding that it’s “the fuel for growth and progress” but “is being questioned in today’s world”.
US government budget cuts are seen as an opportunity to attract such talent to Europe, as Ekaterina Zaharieva, European Commissioner for start-ups, research and innovation, acknowledged.
“In Europe, we do things differently. We don’t tell researchers how and what to research. We respect their freedom to research and they are welcome in Europe,” Zaharieva told Euronews.
A new European Research Area Act is intended to entrench freedom of scientific research into law.
“In Germany, for example, academic and research freedom are considered fundamental rights and are already enshrined in the German constitution,” explains Amandine Hess, who covered the announcement for Euronews.
Money is scarce and the package may not be enough
A new seven-year grant will provide researchers with long-term career prospects and researchers who move to Europe will receive a supplement on top of the grant (the amount will be doubled this year).
But the bureaucracy that scientists face when applying for grants and the difficulties faced by institutions with limited budgets show that the EU is far from delivering on its promises.
“We are really very focused on reducing bureaucracy, reducing reporting demands and focusing on how to make the program more accessible to smaller research organisations, to smaller companies, which will save applicants time and money,” said the European Commissioner, referring to Horizon Europe, the EU’s main funding programme for research and innovation.
Horizon Europe has a budget of €93 billion within the EU’s seven-year rolling budget. But member states are responsible for national investment, and there are significant disparities: Belgium spends 3.4% of its GDP, while Romania only 0.4%.
In total, the EU spends 2.2% of its GDP on research and the Commission has set a target of 3% by 2030. But even that figure is well below that of other advanced regions, such as the United States at 3.5% and Japan at 3.3%.
Scientists fear that the research will not be sufficiently funded within the next rolling budget.
“Public funds will never be enough. So what the Commission is working on is how to get more private sector investment in research innovation,” Zaharieva argued.
“But what we are lagging behind is really in transferring this knowledge to the market, which is what the Competitiveness Fund is all about. The Research Framework is in our treaties, but the connection with competitiveness is really crucial for the implementation,”she claimed.
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Journalist: Isabel Marques da Silva
Content production: Pilar Montero López
Video production: Zacharia Vigneron
Graphism: Loredana Dumitru
Editorial coordination: Ana Lázaro Bosch and Jeremy Fleming-Jones
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