In a recent article for Science|Business, climate researchers call for more backing to develop new technologies and collaborate across borders in the next EU Framework Programme for Research and Innovation (FP10), featuring notable insights from EERA Secretary General Adel El Gammal.

Throughout the article, El Gammal emphasises the critical importance of disruptive innovation in driving forward the green transition, but he importantly notes that the EU needs to specialise.

“The EU is unlikely to build industrial leadership on all technologies and should instead focus on a [smaller] set of critical technologies,” – Adel El Gammal, EERA Secretary General.

This EERA perspective remains very much in line with the International Energy Agency’s (IEA) call for Europe to set out a new industrial master plan. According to the IEA, “de-risking strategies should be developed for critical technologies where the competitiveness gap is unlikely to be bridged.’’

Furthermore, El Gammal goes on to highlight the essential need for substantial investment in collaborative research that fosters industrial cooperation and enables “the accelerated scaling of clean technologies and generat[es] collective spillover effects for climate solutions.”

As indicated in the article, EERA has welcomed MEPs’ call for the FP10 budget to be €220 billion, more than double the Horizon Europe programme.

Moreover, Poland, who will hold the Presidency of the Council of the EU between January and June 2025, will seek to make the research and innovation space more inclusive by promoting collaborations with partners. On this topic, EERA is advocating for a case-by-case approach to partnerships with third countries which, as detailed by El Gammal, is especially relevant to climate research given climate change is “a global issue requiring international synergies.”