New STOA report urges strategic rethink of EU research Framework Programme

More effort must be made in the next EU Framework Programme to align research projects with the bloc’s strategic objectives, according to a report from STOA, the European Parliament’s science and technology advisory panel. 

“The current and expected socio-economic and environmental pressures [. . .] can be seen as a wake-up call that requires re-orientation of established, inert research and innovation structures,” the report says.

Horizon Europe and its predecessors have relied on soft measures to produce a gradual alignment between projects and policies.

“The lack of structural mechanisms to drive long-term systemic change required for transitions such as the Green Deal, digital transformation, and resilience-building suggests that an evolutionary approach alone may fall short,” the report says.

At the same time, the report’s authors acknowledge that this change in direction will not go down well with the research community.

“On the one hand, our analysis [. . .] shows that incremental change may no longer be sufficient,” said Kleitia Zeqo, a consultant with Technopolis Group and one of the report’s authors. “On the other hand, stakeholders understandably tend to prefer continuity and stability, having built experience and trust within the current system.”

“The challenge, then, is to design change that feels evolutionary in process but is transformative in impact,” she told Science|Business.

Measures that could be taken include reducing programme’s administrative complexity, and its thematic and funding fragmentation, through a greater harmonisation of the rules, a clearer architecture and better interoperability with national systems. 

This should help to bridge the gap between research and real-world application, and provide stronger support to small businesses and emerging actors to scale up. Meanwhile, basic research can remain central in FP10, she said.

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The report thinks that some EU member states have already taken this challenge on board. Their research and innovation programmes have evolved to prioritise agility, risk-taking, strategic investments and a stronger alignment of research with societal needs. They now “reflect a growing recognition that traditional research funding mechanisms must evolve to support breakthrough innovation, foster commercialisation, and tackle urgent societal challenges,” it says. 

Germany’s Sprind innovation agency and France 2030 investment plan are given as examples.

The report is unlikely to influence the European Commission’s proposal for the next Framework Programme, which is due to be published in July. However, it’s conclusions may well be picked up by the Parliament’s research committee when it comes to consider the Commission’s proposal.