This live blog is tracking the latest developments in European research and innovation programmes, including the broader debate on the future of R&D policy and funding in the next multiannual budget due to start in 2028. Beyond that, we look at other EU policies with significant research and innovation components in climate, digital, agriculture and regional development. In addition, national governments often come up with new R&D policies, decide to fund new research avenues, and set up international cooperation deals. This blog aims to keep you informed on all of that and more.
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The European Commission has set out a series of measures to try to better coordinate EU science diplomacy efforts.
The Commission has been consulting for several years on revamping how Europe uses science diplomacy, and released a report in February 2025.
"The initiative aims to enable the EU and its Member States to act more strategically and speak with one voice when engaging internationally through research and innovation," the Commission said in a statement.
The proposal will have to be ratified by EU member states.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen is calling for a new global ocean observation alliance.
The EU will contribute €50 million to a global partnership through the Horizon Europe research and innovation programme in 2026-7.
"Together with international partners, we will reinforce a sustainable and resilient Global Ocean Observing System," she said in a statement.
The Commission has also announced OceanEye, an initiative to enhance European ocean observation technology.
UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) has announced a £76 million investment to launch four new national compute resources (NCRs), which will be open to the entire UK research community.
The NCRs will be led by University of Birmingham, University of Cambridge, the University of Edinburgh and University College London. The investment builds on the UK Compute Roadmap published in July 2025.
At least two of the NCRs are expected to launch in summer 2026, with all four set to be up and running in 2027. UKRI also plans to launch community centres of excellence to provide training and support to users.
“These resources are designed to be truly user-centred, offering a diverse range of architectures that will be more accessible to a much broader community, from climate scientists to AI researchers,” said UKRI Digital Research Infrastructure Programme director Richard Gunn.
See more details here.
The organisers of the High-Level Conference on Reforming Research Assessment, held under the Danish EU presidency, have published a policy brief presenting the conclusions from the gathering, which took place in Copenhagen on 3-4 December 2025.
“Member States, universities, and funders must move from pilot projects to systemic change,” the authors note. Assessment systems should also reward open science, collaboration and societal impact, the conference concluded.
The upcoming European Research Area Act and the successor to Horizon Europe offer opportunities to deliver on research assessment reform.
“What is truly broken is not the scientific culture, but the incentive structures surrounding it and the culture they create,” Christina Egelund, Danish minister for higher education and science, told the conference.
The European Parliament has published the results of its latest annual Academic Freedom Monitor, which tracks academic freedom in EU member states and analyses the potential impact of recent trends.
Trends include the potential impact on academic freedom of political polarisation, the influence of the private sector, and foreign interference. Declining respect for academic freedom in the US is another trend that can have consequences for EU countries.
“The findings confirm that the state of de facto academic freedom across the EU continues to erode,” the report concludes. “While systematic and structural infringements of academic freedom occur only in Hungary, various threats to academic freedom are identified and discussed in most other EU Member States.”
It also includes in-depth analysis of developments in academic freedom in Belgium, Finland, Italy and Poland.
Read the full findings here.
The European Investment Bank (EIB) will provide €25 million venture debt financing through the InvestEU programme to Luxembourg-based company OQ Technology, which aims to develop satellite-to-smartphone connectivity.
Funding is set to support the development of its low-earth-orbit satellite telecommunications technology and provide 5G coverage for cellular Internet of Things devices and certain smartphones.
“This solution targets rural and remote areas not served by terrestrial networks and is ideal for low-power, low-data IoT applications,” the European Commission statement reads.
More details here.
Nigeria and the EU have opened negotiations on a political framework to assess their bilateral science cooperation, discuss lessons learnt and determine future actions.
EU-Nigeria cooperation has been growing in recent years, with Nigerian organisations taking part in 55 Horizon Europe projects since 2021. Key areas of cooperation are health, food, agriculture and environment research as well as joint work under Horizon's global health clinical trial partnership, EDCTP3.
The EU currently has bilateral science and technology agreements with 20 countries. The discussions with Nigeria take place as part of a wider strategic dialogue with the country.
More details here.
EU funding for the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT) produces direct economic and societal impact, according to a new study on the EU innovation network by the consultancy Ecorys.
The study, commissioned by the EIT, says the innovation network helped mobilise significant public and private investment, attracting €15.7 billion in external investment.
In terms of societal impact, the consultancy found the EIT contributed to tackling the EU's skill gap through its entrepreneurship training and helped built innovation capacity in the bloc's less innovative regions.
The EIT has been previously criticised for being "overly complex, costly and non-transparent", with mounting calls to scrap it in the next EU budget, due to start in 2028.
Find the full study here.
The Irish government has adopted an action plan to boost the participation of the country's small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in Horizon Europe.
Irish researchers already perform well in the EU research programme, but the government now wants the country's SMEs to boost their potential in the programme. So far, Irish organisations have secured €1 billion in funding from the current Horizon Europe.
The action plan also aims to prepare Ireland's national research and innovation system for the next Horizon Europe programme, due to start in 2028.
More details here.
UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) is streamlining the naming of its research translation and commercialisation funding opportunities, which will progressively adopt one of four harmonised titles.
The new nomenclature includes “prosperity partnership” to support or enable collaborative research and development, “impact acceleration” dedicated to engagement and knowledge exchange, “proof of concept” to advance the development of new or improved products and services, and “entrepreneurship” designed to help researchers translate their work into market-ready solutions.
The move is part of efforts to create “a more transparent, user-friendly and future-proof funding ecosystem,” UKRI says in a statement.
More details here.
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