Reflections on the European Union’s next framework programme
With the Framework Programme, the European Commission is seeking to achieve the objectives of sustainable growth, job creation and economic sovereignty, while tackling the major social challenges facing Europe – such as climate change, migratory flows, food and energy security, health and an ageing population, democracy and the EU’s fundamental values.
- What the Framework Programme needs to do in the future is to put fundamental science back at the forefront, with its capacity for ideation and creativity, in Europe, but also to facilitate collaboration in a European-International mode.
- The new programme should place even greater emphasis on initiatives aimed at creating major collaborative projects and structuring broad international cooperation between scientific communities for research and innovation. Priority must be given to the advancement and sustainability of the pan-European research infrastructures that are part of the ESFRI roadmap and which, together, have already attracted an investment of €25 billion from EU Member States. It is essential to make them strategic levers for European excellence and growth. Cooperation in research and innovation, which encourages international collaboration on the preparation, construction, use and maintenance of pan-European research infrastructures (ESFRIs, ERICs), must be given the utmost attention. The grouping of these infrastructures should be supported in order to improve cross-fertilisation between scientific fields and common societal challenges.
- Clusters of ESFRI projects should be supported to improve cross-fertilisation between research infrastructures (RIs) around common social challenges.
- Various national recovery plans now have objectives that are often similar in the different EU Member States: quantum technologies, artificial intelligence, new materials, biodiversity, nuclear, semiconductors and microelectronics, etc. All these investments could be combined and accounted for under the aegis of European programmes. The creation of virtual European institutes spread across different nodes/hubs in EU countries would make it possible to combine these similar actions more effectively, preserve national excellence and create a sovereign, more sustainable pan-European destination to compete on a global scale.
- Traditionally, the programmes follow the same three-pillar logic: (pillar 1) fundamental research; (pillar 2) global issues and European industrial competitiveness (through 6 clusters); (pillar 3) breakthrough innovation with the creation of the European Innovation Council (EIC).
- Many R&I efforts, such as ICT and enabling technologies, cut across many political, societal and industrial challenges. Further fragmentation poses the risk of losing momentum in key cross-cutting technologies in Europe. There should be support for an overarching European R&I programme and reduce the trend whereby several European Commission (EC) Directorates-General have their own targeted European programme with an R&I component.
- Excellence in R&I requires research collaboration and is based on the full use and application of the principles of open access and open science (in line with the guiding principle of ‘as open as possible, as closed as needed’). Excellence in R&I implies multiple iterations between fundamental research and innovation actions closer to the market, which the new programme should encourage, while supporting the development of targeted ecosystems orchestrated by research players, with optimal conditions for the exploitation of knowledge. At the same time, rather than defining missions, the Commission should work in collaboration with industry to identify areas in which the EU can innovate more effectively and be more competitive at global level.
- Under Pillar 1, the ERC is the programme of choice for the research community. The ERC programme is run by researchers for researchers. This autonomy and the uniqueness of seeing scientists at the head of the programming of the EC’s R&I actions should represent an example to inspire the other R&I actions of the future programme. The budget split of 27% Pillar 1 and 55% Pillar 2 should be reviewed in favour of Pillar 1. This can be done by proposing cooperation schemes between Pillar 2 clusters and scientific clusters in Pillar 1 of the pan-European RIs for open science and digital technologies created in recent years in the various fields, and focusing on the implications of ESFRI RIs and the scientific communities that support them, in collaboration with industry, to address innovation challenges.
- For example, anticipating the applications of new technologies for society; collaborating with industry in the early stages of IR development and design; supporting collaborative and multidisciplinary approaches for nuclear energy; targeting the decompartmentalised application of digital, physical and biological technologies for health ; Invite scientists to become involved in facilitating the digital transition and industrial conversion (particularly for SMEs); target the deployment and operation of web-based digital platforms for data interoperability for the benefit of research, industry and society.
- A more transversal structuring of the work-programmes would seem necessary. We could propose joint programmes (pillar 1 + pillar 2) requiring the involvement of the RIs and the scientific communities that support them, in collaboration with industry and society, to meet the challenges of energy, innovation, quality of life and environmental sustainability. Lowering the TRL levels required could help, but this would have to be combined with an evolutionary path for the programmes over the years rather than multi-annual cycles that are often almost repetitive and that do not build on the achievements and successes of projects that have already been funded and completed.
- Funded by the European Union in 2019 as part of H2020, five projects have linked EOSC to ESFRI, forming five Science Clusters. These Science Clusters have recently taken different routes to becoming long-term structures: through memoranda of understanding (SSHOC), international collaboration agreements (ESCAPE), building on established consortia of thematic RIs (EOSC Life) or in an ongoing process, building on already existing cooperation frameworks or thematic RI groups (ENVRI, PANOSC). The five science clusters share a forward-looking work plan for their sustainable positioning and are actively seeking a dedicated destination action within Horizon Europe and future framework programmes.
- In addition, the Commission is gradually introducing lump sum financing. The European Commission is considering making lump sums the general rule in the next framework programme. As part of the OSCARS project, which brings together the five Science Clusters and which I coordinate, ‘cascade calls for grants’ are being organised in 2024. The expectations of the scientific community are relevant. We are working to make everything work, and already the scientific community seems to be expressing a keen interest in lump sums and in the EC delegating to the scientific communities the task of carrying out a funding programme and federating actions.