Research sector calls for a clear and structured connection between the European Competitiveness Fund and Horizon Europe

Faced with intensifying global competition and rapid technological change, Europe needs to act to boost its competitiveness, prosperity and resilience. In this context, the EU’s next long-term budget (multiannual financial framework) for 2028-2034 has an important role to play in funding programmes that deliver excellent research and translate it into innovative solutions.

For this reason, EUA, CESAER, the Coimbra Group, EU-LIFE, The Guild of European Research-Intensive Universities, the League of European Research Universities (LERU) and the Young European Universities Network (YERUN) have published new input on the proposed European Competitiveness Fund, at a key juncture in the legislative process. The statement follows a joint set of suggested amendments to the European Commission’s proposals for the next Horizon Europe programme, which will be the EU’s tenth framework programme for R&I (FP10), suggests improvements to the current proposal for the ECF regulation and lists ideas for its implementation in complementarity with Horizon Europe.

Through this statement, the R&I community clearly defines what the role of each instrument should be, within the European research landscape. In short, the ECF and Horizon Europe must be two distinct and complementary programmes and the connection between them should be clearly structured.

To this end, the signatories put forward practical proposals for the design of the FP10-ECF interface, including suggestions on how to clearly identify the programmes’ core missions, improve their governance and implement the connection between both programmes. The statement also outlines the areas in which the Competitiveness Fund can have the greatest impact on Europe’s long-term competitiveness and prosperity. For example, it can contribute to strengthening Europe’s skills capacity, by complementing skills development initiatives taking place under existing programmes such as Erasmus+.

Download the joint statement

 “The current proposal for the European Competitiveness Fund regulation needs significant adjustments to ensure it contributes to building a coherent and effective European funding architecture and to enable the meaningful participation of universities and research organisations”, said Amanda Crowfoot, EUA Secretary General.

 “In terms of the connection between the ECF and FP10, it is crucial that clear roles are allocated to each programme. Horizon Europe should remain the programme for excellent and collaborative R&I and the ECF should focus on the scaling up, deployment and fast translation of R&I into impact. The university sector would appreciate more clarity on how this will work in practice, and stresses the importance of avoiding overlap between the two instruments and reducing complexity for beneficiaries”, she added.

The R&I community stands ready to work together with EU institutions and member states to find concrete solutions to make both programmes as effective as possible, enabling scale-up support and deployment.