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As the EU prepares its next long-term budget, the Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF), a heated debate is under way over the fate of the future Framework Programme for Research and Innovation (FP10).

The central question is whether it should remain a stand-alone programme or be folded into a larger European Competitiveness Fund (sometimes described as a Competitiveness and Innovation Fund), envisioned by the European Commission to focus the next EU budget, from 2028, on boosting European innovation, strategic autonomy and economic growth.

In essence, as an internal Commission memo outlined in late 2024, the idea is to bundle numerous programmes into a single ¡°mega-fund¡±. The stated goals are simplification, coherence and greater flexibility to respond to urgent policy needs.

However, many European research stakeholders fear that placing research and innovation within such a broad fund would compromise its traditional strengths, most notably support for curiosity-driven frontier research based primarily on excellence, as well as international openness and long-term stability.

These concerns have prompted strong calls to preserve FP10¡¯s independence: a joint ¡°¡± signed by EU research ministers and a adopted in March both insist on maintaining FP10 as a stand-alone programme.

Still, in defending FP10¡¯s autonomy, it is important not to lose sight of another pressing issue: what will this independence be worth if it is not backed by sufficient financial firepower for research and innovation?

Stakeholders have clamoured for an FP10 budget in the range of €200-220 billion (?170-187 billion) ¨C more than double Horizon Europe¡¯s €95 billion. But Commissioner Ekaterina Zaharieva, tasked with designing the programme, has already hinted that such a leap is ¡°unrealistic¡± under the next MFF alone. So without significant new revenue sources, an independent FP10 risks being unable to match the EU¡¯s research ambitions.

Nor is funding the only issue. Framework Programmes have been a fixture of EU policy since 1984, with only incremental changes. This has created a stable and trusted European research landscape. Nevertheless, stakeholders have repeatedly identified structural weaknesses: low success rates, administrative complexity and over-fragmentation (such as ).

While FP10¡¯s independence remains a legitimate goal, the overarching policy aspiration should not be to preserve a format, but to ensure that research and innovation deliver for both European society and the economy. In seeking to hold on to the baby, we should not be afraid to throw out the bathwater.

What is that baby? For most academic lobbyists, it is the current Pillar 1 of Horizon Europe: the excellence-based funding mechanisms for frontier science that include the European Research Council (ERC) and the Marie Sk?odowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) for early-career training. So one potential solution could be to retain an independent FP10 focused on fundamental research under the traditional MFF, while integrating the current pillars 2 and 3 ¨C addressing global challenges, industrial competitiveness and innovation ecosystems ¨C into the Competitiveness Fund.

This would preserve the integrity of fundamental science while aligning later-stage research and innovation efforts with wider economic and security objectives. It would also respond to growing calls for synergies between EU instruments without compromising the principles of excellence and openness.

Moreover, research needs to be backed with significant new money. In response to the Covid-19 pandemic, the EU established the Next Generation EU (NGEU) instrument ¨C a temporary mechanism allowing the Commission to borrow directly from financial markets. The €750 billion programme channelled most of its funding to member states via national recovery plans, but also . Although NGEU was conceptualised as a one-off programme, whose resources run out in 2026, it proved that when the political will is there, the EU can act at scale.

Today, if there is one area where the political tide is turning in favour of large-scale EU action, it is defence. Russia¡¯s war against Ukraine and the US¡¯ equivocation on continued support for Nato are sharpening Europe¡¯s awareness of its strategic vulnerabilities. For universities, this cuts both ways. They may object to the Commission¡¯s plan to amend EU regulations to allow dual-use and defence-related projects to be funded under Horizon Europe, but the renewed legitimacy that the geopolitical circumstances bestow on EU debt instruments for joint procurement and industrial capacity could boost the overall amount of research funding available.

At the same time, stronger alliances beyond academia ¨C including industry, regional authorities, defence and climate actors ¨C will be necessary to secure the political consensus needed for enhanced research investment. Based on the recent and reports, we must frame research and innovation as a strategic function of the Union, rather than a niche domain.

To be clear: the independence of research remains a valuable principle. But without adequate funding it risks becoming a hollow gesture ¨C or as a 1990s pop song puts it, ¡°my love has got no money; he¡¯s got his strong beliefs¡±.

A well-funded, strategically focused research programme that remains open to international collaboration would be one of the EU¡¯s most effective tools for enabling scientific excellence and innovation, as well as harnessing soft power in a fragmenting world. But to achieve this, we need to think less incrementally and more out of the box. ?

Daniel Spichtinger is an EU research policy analyst.