We are at the cusp of a knowledge revolution in health, digital, energy, and many other fields. Therefore, Europe must step up its scientific leadership amongst the global knowledge societies. As associations of European research-intensive universities, we urge Europe to invest better, smarter and more ambitiously in research and innovation (R&I) – and to ensure that the next Framework Programme for R&I (FP10) has the scale, quality and reach to ensure Europe’s pre-eminence in the global science revolution. To this end, LERU, CE7 and The Guild underline that this ambition must be articulated from the beginning. To anticipate the start of the drafting process of FP10, we give the following key messages:
- More excellent R&I is required to tackle the challenges and to realize the goals of a European continent that is driven by global leadership and strategic autonomy at the same time.
- More excellent R&I demands more European and national R&I funding, realizing, and even going significantly beyond, the long aimed for 3% target, with a ring-fenced budget of at least €200bn for FP10.
- More excellent R&I demands strong research-intensive universities across Europe, which attract and retain the best researchers through the FP’s support of excellent research, collaboration and innovation, sustained by the free circulation of knowledge, and a legally protected respect of academic freedom, including institutional autonomy.
- Excellent R&I demands a FP that focuses on clear short and long term priorities, avoiding continuous political changes in priority setting and redirecting of FP funding, and that ensures complementarity in EU funding programmes, within and beyond FP10, avoiding duplication and fragmentation.
- Excellent R&I needs to contribute to the resilience of Europe in facing the current and emerging global challenges through funding aimed at the creation of new knowledge, and through less prescriptive calls that foster a longer-term perspective for impact and stimulate true interdisciplinarity; the entire research and innovation process must be fostered, and the ambition for investing in frontier research must be raised.
- Excellent R&I demands an FP driven by scientific excellence and open competition, with a clear focus on and an increased budget share for instruments with a proven track record like the ERC and the MSCA, and an explicit disinvestment from instruments where success can not be evidenced.
- Excellent R&I demands a FP that is open to the world, with a focus on association of the leading R&I nations, and that facilitates smooth global cooperation while guaranteeing at the same time transparency and the respect of rights and obligations; within that context, it is essential that the UK and Switzerland are preferential partners in a distinct category, on account of their long, close and trusted integration in European collaborative research and innovation.
- Excellent R&I demands European and national regulatory frameworks that facilitate and stimulate research collaboration, and minimize the administrative burden for applicants in FP10; it must build on a full use and application of open access and open science principles (respecting the lead principle of “as open as possible, as closed as necessary”), and a full recognition and respect of equality, diversity and inclusion, mobilizing and promoting the fully available capacity of R&I excellence in society.
- Excellent R&I implies multiple iterations between fundamental and closer-to-market research and innovation actions, which FP10 must encourage, while supporting the development of ecosystems centred on, and orchestrated by, research actors with optimal conditions for knowledge valorisation.
- Excellent R&I demands capacity-building instruments whose EU added value can be demonstrated and evaluated, that strengthen the environments for research excellence that are fostered across Europe, and that can be supported by increased funding for research capacities through the European Structural and Investment Funds (ESIF).
28 June 2023
