What comes after Horizon Europe, the EU programme for science❓
I was invited by the EU Commission to speculate about this as a member of an international group of experts. Our assignment was to outline the framework for a new funding programme when Horizon Europe ends in 2027 🗓️.
Today, we presented our 12 recommendations (“Align, Act, Accelerate – Research, Technology and Innovation to boost European Competitiveness”) to the EU Commission. The following aspects are particularly important to me:
1. increase ambition: Too many start-ups are moving away because there are no financing prospects in Europe. Meanwhile, other regions of the world are overtaking Europe, particularly in innovative fields of technology, such as the development of artificial intelligence. 👉 Our recommendation: All research and innovation projects that are recognised as outstanding must be funded. The budget must therefore be increased from the current 95 billion euros to 220 billion euros.
2. exploit opportunities: The European Research Council's excellence programmes are now the gold standard for funding outstanding individual scientists. We will only realise the potential of these funding programmes if we fully fund them. 💶 We can strengthen them if we boldly develop simple procedures to provide a testing and development platform for radically new ideas.
3. increase attractiveness: European industry has lost some interest in EU research funding in recent years. The advantage of working together with partners from other member states in the pre-competitive area has also been lost due to increasing bureaucratic burdens. 👉 We need a framework programme that makes cross-border collaborative research between companies and research institutions simpler and more user-friendly.
4. ambitious pragmatism: Europe can only act successfully if it is supported and strengthened by the member states. Added value is created when we join forces, for example in jointly utilised large-scale research equipment or testing platforms for new technologies. ⚙️ There is currently still too much piecemeal work here, too many small-scale compromises. We need a clear strategy for a few, but forward-looking large-scale devices.
5. also co-operate with difficult partners: We can work successfully beyond Europe's borders if we have defined our own research interests in advance: 💬 What do we want to work on with others? Who are our trusted partner countries? Where do we also need to co-operate with difficult partners in order to address the major global changes? The countries of Europe 🌍 can no longer guarantee national security on their own. We need co-operation here too. In modern science, old distinctions between research results that are clearly for military use and those that are clearly for civilian use can hardly be maintained.
More on this soon.
#heitorreport
