Don’t forget bottom-up research, industry tells Commission

Europe should not forget fundamental and bottom-up research as it looks to channel more resources to strategic technologies that will be crucial for its competitiveness, the business community is warning.

“Yes, Europe needs to be strategic and there are some strategic sectors that need to be in the scope of the next [financial] framework, but we also need to have this more bottom-up, open mindset for things that cannot be anticipated to a large extent,” Alexandre Affre, deputy director general of industry association BusinessEurope, told Science|Business.

In its next Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF), the long-term budget from 2028 to 2034, the EU should try to strike a balance between top-down and bottom-up innovation. It should avoid “becoming overly prescriptive in picking winning technologies, because we have seen it does not always work,” Affre said.

In its newly-published recommendations for research and innovation funding in the next MFF, BusinessEurope says programmes should offer a good level of flexibility in terms of technologies, project size, scope and technology readiness levels.

The association has joined universities and research lobbies in calling for a larger and ring-fenced budget for research and innovation (R&I). “Leaving the door open to redirect R&I funding to other policy areas when needs arise risks missing the critical opportunity Europe has to position itself effectively in the global innovation race,” it says.

The increased funding should encompass “the entire innovation spectrum, from fundamental research to applied, incremental and disruptive innovations,” and support the transition from research and development to industrialisation, deployment and scale-up, the position paper notes.

There is currently concern within the research community that the upcoming European Competitiveness Fund, which appears likely to include Horizon Europe’s successor, FP10, will neglect basic research. In both its EU competitiveness plan and the roadmap for the next MFF, the Commission outlined its intention to support strategic sectors and technologies, offering few details about how research in other areas would be funded.

Earlier this week, European Commission vice-president Stéphane Séjourné said the new mega-fund would follow “the entire life of companies from research to industrial production.”

While BusinessEurope is backing the Commission’s competitiveness agenda, it doesn’t weigh in on whether or not FP10 should come under the Competitiveness Fund. In either case, what is important is ensuring R&I funding does not end up being redirected to other policy areas.

“You can find opportunities and risk in all scenarios,” Affre said. Although many universities fear integrating research in the Competitiveness Fund will allow funding to be redirected to other priorities, it could alternatively bring much-needed simplification to the EU’s fragmented funding landscape.

Industry needs

While more funding is needed for research and innovation, this should not be the only focus of discussions, says BusinessEurope. It is also important for future programmes to be better aligned with industry needs. As well as simplifying the different funding schemes, this could be done by speeding up evaluation processes and increasing transparency.

“We have a very fast-moving global environment, with high competition for new technologies, so one of the needs for business is to be agile and quick in developing solutions,” Affre said.

There is “no question” the Framework Programmes are a relevant tool for companies, particularly the collaborative research partnerships, he added. It’s currently unclear how the partnerships will look in FP10, with the Commission so far revealing only its desire to reduce their number. But for the business community they are an essential tool.

“We are convinced that the model needs to be continued, because we hardly see any good alternative to allow and create the conditions for collaborative projects,” Affre said.

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Improvements could however be made by giving industry a greater steering role, for example by creating a new governing body to oversee collaborative research, similar to the European Research Council’s scientific council and the European Innovation Council board. The idea would be to ensure that calls for proposals, selected projects and implementation better reflect industry needs.

This was one of the recommendations made by the expert group set up to advise the Commission on FP10, which called for the creation of a European Technology and Industrial Competitiveness Council.

Europe is largely comparable to the US in terms of public R&D funding; where it lags behind is in private investment. An expanded and improved Framework Programme could help to incentivise that private investment, but it won’t be enough on its own. It will also be important to tackle the EU’s complex regulatory framework and high energy costs, Affre said.