On Tuesday 11 March, the European ministers responsible for research who were meeting informally in Warsaw, Poland, and the European Parliament meeting in plenary session in Strasbourg, called for an independent and ambitious research and innovation framework programme (R&I).
This summer, the European Commission is expected to present a proposal for funding the next EU framework programme within the post-2027 multiannual financial framework. The EU’s current framework programme, Horizon Europe, provides more than €95 billion for research and innovation between 2021 and 2027, making it the largest programme of its kind in the world. The two institutions opposed the potential integration of the next framework programme into the European Competitiveness Fund.
On the one hand, the 27 ministers endorsed the Warsaw Declaration, an initiative of the Polish Presidency of the EU Council that calls for ambitious and effective funding for scientific research and innovation, to ensure that research results and innovations strengthen EU competitiveness, national economies and the ability to meet global challenges. The ministers also reaffirmed that the EU Framework Programme for Research and Innovation is embedded in the EU Treaties.
“Our researchers and inventors are our competitive advantage. We need to trust them and create the best possible conditions for their work”, said Marcin Kulasek, Poland’s Minister of Science and Higher Education.
Read the Warsaw declaration: https://aeur.eu/f/fvr
Secondly, by 472 votes to 75 with 92 abstentions, the European Parliament adopted the own-initiative report by Christian Ehler MEP (EPP, German), which proposes to strengthen Europe’s research and innovation capacities with a view to the tenth research framework programme (FP10) (see EUROPE 13583/12). At a press conference, the MEP criticised the European Commission’s proposal: “If we analyse things in depth, we see that there are real gaps, which are linked to short-term political perspectives rather than long-term ones, which means that we are not going to attract the most interesting researchers”.
“The European Parliament has sent a clear signal [...] it has said ‘no’ to the European Commission’s plan to reduce the next framework programme to a competitiveness fund that only has two or three priorities”, he added.
Read the report: https://aeur.eu/f/fvs
International scientific cooperation and support for companies. Furthermore, given the recent geopolitical tensions, the ministers agreed on the need to strengthen international scientific cooperation and stressed the importance of international collaboration and knowledge exchange in maintaining Europe’s leadership in science and innovation.
The ministers also explored ways of removing administrative and regulatory barriers in order to fully unlock the potential of European innovation. They also discussed how to better support start-ups and scale-ups. (Original version in French by Anne Damiani)