On 19 February, the European Parliament Committee on Industry, Research and Energy (ITRE) approved a report on the “Assessment of the implementation of Horizon Europe in view of its interim evaluation and recommendations for the 10th Research Framework Programme.” A blueprint for the future of the European Union’s research and innovation ecosystem, the report, much like Manuel Heitor’s expert group’s prior publication titled “Act, Align, Accelerate,” is intended to influence the European Commission’s upcoming proposal for the EU’s 2027-2034 research and innovation Framework Programme, due in July. 

Led by rapporteur Christian Ehler, an influential member of ITRE from the European People’s Party (EPP), the initial report was introduced in November. The research community notably welcomed the initiative, which supported several key propositions from Heitor’s evaluation – and continues to do so in its final iteration – including increasing the budget of Framework Programme 10 (FP10), creating two independent research councils for Societal Challenges and Industrial Competitiveness matters, and reducing the complexity of the Framework Programme through radical simplification. 

Among its key proposals, the ITRE committee’s final report recommends reaching the target of spending 3% of GDP on research and development (R&D) and ensuring the funding of at least 75% of excellent proposals submitted and recognised the important role of basic and collaborative research. It also suggests that FP10 should focus on three core objectives: creating a European competition of ideas by accelerating the development of fundamental science to innovation scale-up; supporting large-scale strategic and collaborative research initiatives; and advancing the European Research Area (ERA). Regarding Missions and Partnerships, ITRE’s assessment recognises their central roles in addressing R&I challenges and bringing public and private actors together. However, it urges the Commission to consider whether Mission funding should continue under Horizon Europe. 

The report also supports the use of lump-sum funding but recommends that the Commission carefully consider potential drawbacks to its expansion, particularly in light of concerns about simplification and efficiency. In contrast to the Heitor report, it encourages a “reformed and refocused” European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT) and does not call for its discontinuation. On Widening, the mechanism designed to increase the participation of EU countries with lower innovation performance, ITRE recommends financing these actions at the national level, complemented by cohesion policy funds. 

Notably, the proposition to double the European Research Council (ERC) budget and to increase funding for the European Innovation Council (EIC), with half of FP10’s budget allocated to them put forward in the initial report had been met with a lot of scepticism from the research community, and has since been removed from the approved text. Nonetheless, the final report still highlights their importance and calls for ensuring their autonomy. Undoubtedly, the biggest upcoming battle regarding the Framework Programme’s budget now lies in the proposal to merge it into a new Competitiveness Fund. The ITRE report opposes merging FP10 into such a mega-fund, warning that it could harm bottom-up innovation. 

The Competitiveness Fund, to be proposed this summer by the European Commission under the next Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF), the EU’s seven-year budget, is expected to centralise funding structures to better support competitiveness, potentially merging up to eleven different financing schemes in strategic fields. While its scope remains unclear, the Fund has been identified as an important ‘competitiveness enabler’ in the EU’s new roadmap, the Competitiveness Compass. An early leak of the Competitiveness Fund outline had shown that the European Commission was considering merging the Innovation Fund, the EIT, Horizon Europe, InvestEU, and other innovation financing schemes linked to health, defence, space, and digital, among others. This could prevent research and innovation from benefiting from a stable, ring-fenced budget. The report is now set to be put to a vote by the entire EU Parliament in an upcoming plenary session, ahead of the European Commission’s proposal in July.