Excellence and collaboration, not ‘Europe first’, will ensure FP10 boosts the bloc, says Jan Palmowski
At the heart of the relationship between the European Competitiveness Fund (ECF) and the next Horizon Europe Programme (FP10) is a key issue: how—and by whom—should projects be chosen? And should preference be given to EU researchers and innovators?
The Commission’s proposal for the ECF outlines an “accelerated and targeted” selection process in cases of “imperative public interest” or “critical time-sensitivity”. In “necessary” and “duly justified” cases, certain eligibility criteria might be waived. Beneficiaries might be invited to submit a proposal for which no call exists. Awards could be made purely on the basis of self-declarations of applicants, which would be checked after the start of the grant. And, strikingly, article 20 of the Commission’s FP10 proposal specifies that the accelerated and targeted procedures of the ECF shall apply directly to Horizon Europe.
Undermining open competition
The Commission may well have had in mind the experience of the Covid‑19 pandemic, during which it would have been much easier and faster to make immediate funding decisions to respond to an unexpected catastrophe. But we might do well to take the Commission’s executive vice-president for prosperity and industrial strategy, Stéphane Séjourné, at his word. He argued recently that: “We must establish, once and for all, a genuine European preference in our most strategic sectors.”
In the ECF, “imperative public interest” might be about halting the decline of the European car industry, or the need to accelerate artificial intelligence by investing in a particular idea or company. The big risk with the accelerated and targeted procedure is that policymakers are rarely the best judges of excellence. They normally lack the skills and are prone to support existing companies to placate their electors rather than new promising ideas that have no electoral lobby yet.
The accelerated and targeted procedure, in short, is extremely problematic for the ECF. Even more worryingly, it could completely undermine the nature of Horizon Europe, whose essence is open competition and excellence judged by peers. If projects are selected based on political fit, it will be a massive blow to the credibility of Horizon Europe—with huge consequences for researchers’ and innovators’ willingness to engage. And it would undermine the participation of world-leading researchers from outside the EU, with whom we need to collaborate, precisely in strategic fields where we trail China and the US.
Strategic protection
Unfortunately, if Séjourné is concerned about protecting Europe’s most strategic sectors, then that applies to all the thematic priorities outlined in the policy windows of the ECF and FP10. Their purpose is precisely to strengthen Europe’s global competitiveness. Article 20 of the FP10 proposal could create a two-tier system: projects chosen on the basis of excellence, and projects chosen by political favour.
EU preference has no role in a global research and innovation programme, where the added value to Europe comes precisely through collaboration and exchange not only within Europe, but also with partners overseas. According to the Stanford AI Index Report 2025, in 2024, Europe’s total private investment in AI was $19.4 billion (with the UK being the largest European private investor at $4.52bn), compared with US private investment at $109bn. In 2024, US‑based institutions produced 40 notable top AI models, compared with 15 in China and three in Europe. Almost 90 per cent of these came from industry, while academia continued to produce the key research advances in AI. In this example of AI (but others could be mentioned), the EU will not be able to hold its own with targeted investments. These will always be paltry on a global scale. But we can compete in what we are good at: collaboration.
Global competitiveness
To be competitive on a global scale, we first need to build on our strengths, supporting academic research based on excellence (not politics). Second, we need to develop smarter ways of translating this research into innovation and scale‑up. And third, we must collaborate across borders, but not just within the EU. Horizon Europe must draw in key R&I nations—such as the UK, Norway and Switzerland, but also others further afield—that already have major strengths in academic excellence and private investment that the EU cannot ignore. The growing list of associated countries brings real potential to create a third global R&I superpower that is far more beneficial to the EU than EU protectionism.
The accelerated and targeted procedure undermines the essence of Horizon Europe and is against Europe’s interests. EU preference of any kind has no place in Horizon Europe.
This article was originally published in Research Professional.
Jan Palmowski
Secretary-General of The Guild – A contemporary historian, he started his career at the University of Oxford before moving to King’s College London where he taught European politics and EU integration. He was Pro-Vice-Chancellor at the University of Warwick from 2013 to 2017. In this blog space, Prof. Palmowski engages with some of the wider questions around research, education, innovation and the EU. The views expressed here are his and not those of The Guild.