Commission plans €1.47B for industry R&D to bolster tech autonomy

As part of its drive for tech autonomy, the European Commission is hatching plans to spend €1.47 billion next year on a range of industrial, space and digital technologies that could give the EU a competitive edge in global markets, according to documents obtained by Science|Business.

The projects, to be funded from the EU’s Horizon Europe R&D programme, cover a vast range of sectors. There is to be money for new materials and recycling, so the EU semiconductor, telecoms, construction and other industries can reduce their dependence on foreign suppliers. Other projects include an in-orbit system to clear space junk and repair European satellites, and a new network system for European telecoms operators. Artificial intelligence, quantum, wearable electronics and “technology infrastructure” are also on the agenda.

The plans are in a 267-page document, dated 5 July and circulating privately among EU member state officials, that spell out how the Commission wants to spend its Horizon budget for the industrial, space and digital “cluster” of programmes. It incorporates, with little change, earlier digital research plans from 30 May that Science|Business also obtained. These Horizon work programmes are a standard part of the Commission’s planning process for its 2025 Horizon budget – but the Commission has in the past refused to make them public until they reach a more advanced stage.

Not so open

Though routine, the July plan reflects a sea change in the EU industrial and research politics of the past few years. After years of declaring its research programmes “open to the world,” the Commission – since COVID, Trump, the Ukraine war and rising tensions with China – has become more restrictive about just how open it will be. The aim, endorsed by Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, is to make European industry less dependent on foreign tech. Nowadays, the term of art in Brussels for this policy is “open strategic autonomy.”

As an example, the Horizon plans for space research include 30 calls for proposals totaling €139 million in the 2025 budget. Of those, 16 “are proposed for limited participation” outside the EU, the document says. It cites “a global context that requires the EU to take action to build on its strengths, and to carefully assess and address any strategic weaknesses, vulnerabilities and high-risk dependences which put at risk the attainment of its ambitions.”

For instance, that includes €52.5 million for a new space system called ISOS (In-space operations and services). Under discussion in Brussels for the past few years, ISOS would be launched to clear space junk that could collide with European satellites from orbit. It would also be able to repair satellites. Most of this work would be open only to companies and institutions in the EU plus Norway and Iceland. That means some new Horizon members, such as Canada, Korea and the UK, may end up excluded.

Other parts of the programme will be more open. For instance, there is a plan to spend €8 million on early-stage research with South Korea on quantum technologies, €5 million on collaboration with Africa on AI, and €9.4 million with the US on various “AI for public good” projects – such as developing an AI system to help reconstruct landmark buildings, for instance those bombed in Ukraine. But throughout the plan, a few topics are hotspots for the tech autonomy policy – especially quantum, space and some advanced materials.

As usual with this section of Horizon, the Commission is planning many of the calls with Horizon partnerships, the long-running and often large initiatives in which the Commission forms a kind of research club with industry, member states or others to share the costs and results. But all the calls will eventually be published openly, to solicit applications. The earliest opening date cited in the draft document is 22 May 2025, and the latest deadline mentioned is 13 November. The schedule partly reflects an expectation that the incoming Commissioners will want their first months in office to review the plan before it’s all finalised.

Some key elements in the plan:

• Most of the calls, 76 in all, are organised into six “destinations” – not quite industrial sectors or scientific disciplines.  Instead, they’re organised by broad policy goals, such as “achieving global leadership in climate-neutral, circular and digitised industrial and digital value chains.” That turns out to be a set of calls to make manufacturing, construction, recycling and other industries greener, energy-efficient and climate-neutral. Many of the calls will require, as part of the application process, a description of the business case and exploitation plans for the proposed technology.
   
• The €550 million in digital industry calls is virtually unchanged from the last known draft plan, dated 30 May. But in this as elsewhere in the July document, the technologies and goals for each call are described in more detail. And the AI section has a notable new addition to the plan: an “artificial intelligence in science” category. It includes a €12 million call to apply AI towards developing new, strategic materials, “essential for EU’s strategic autonomy.”
   
• For students of Horizon much of the plan will look familiar – with similar industrial constituencies being served as in the past. There are calls to aid European semiconductor, construction, steel, renewable energy and recycling industries. One especially large project, for €80 million, is to help the telecoms industry develop its next-generation digital infrastructure, called the “Telco Edge Cloud.” There are projects for the European paint and sealant industry, the European textile industry,  and many more. While much of Horizon focuses on early-stage research or small-company financing regardless of sector, this portion of the programme has long been intended to aid European industry.
   
• A few hints of what might come later, in Framework Programme 10 from 2028, can be found scattered through the document. There’s a €3 million project to develop a roadmap for how AI could in future be used to advanced science across the board. And there’s a €2 million call to study “technology infrastructures”, an idea circulating in Brussels to get specialised lab equipment – synchrotrons, laser facilities and other “big science” machines – working on more industrial technologies.

Science|Business is keeping the full history of the drafting process publicly available in our Horizon Papers database. We think it is important to maintain a public record of how the programme evolves, in successive rounds of drafting between the Commission and member states. It is a political process – which, so far, the Commission refuses to make transparent. You can share anonymously other draft work programmes at [email protected].