As the EU works to implement Horizon Europe, its new framework programme for research and innovation (see EUROPE 12621/10), the NGO Corporate Europe Observatory regretted, in an analysis published on Sunday 11 April, that the European Commission has not changed its approach to the implementation of European research partnerships between the public and private sectors.
In May 2020, the NGO published two reports (see EUROPE 12494/16) detailing the stranglehold that companies involved in these partnerships have on both work programmes and research agendas. It also pointed to the failure to meet certain financial commitments.
According to the analysis published on Sunday, companies will be able to continue to exert a similar influence in nine new large-scale public-private partnerships: the new EU Joint Undertakings, which will be created under Horizon Europe for a period of ten years.
The NGO’s analysis focuses on the proposal for an EU Council Regulation to frame the implementation of these nine partnerships. The proposal was unveiled by the Commission in February this year and is currently under consideration by the EU Council - which will have the final say on it.
For Corporate Europe Observatory, the conclusion drawn from this analysis “is clear: in the Joint Undertakings created by this draft regulation, participating companies would still largely control how the general strategic research agenda and specific annual work programmes are defined, without having to risk any money in the projects’ operational costs”.
These costs will be fully covered by EU funds, to the tune of €9.6 billion: a sum, the draft regulation specifies, which will be taken from Horizon Europe's “Pillar II”.
This strand - devoted to “global challenges”, and industrial competitiveness - has a total budget (€53.8 billion) far greater than that of “Pillar I” (€24.9 billion), which is dedicated to cutting-edge research by universities and public research centres.
See the Commission’s proposal: https://bit.ly/3uE928s; its annexes: https://bit.ly/3wND4Zq; and the NGO analysis: https://bit.ly/3mCsZde (Original version in French by Agathe Cherki)