Some Sunday afternoon reflections on the future EU funding for R&I …

The Alarm Bells Are Ringing for EU Basic Research Funding

Conclusion :

The EU institutions should re-read Draghi’s report and take his latest wake-up calls seriously.

A €175 billion EU R&I budget sounded ambitious over the summer — assuming that additional ECF funding would follow.

If that was an illusion — and total R&I funding for 2028–2034 is indeed limited to this figure — and if basic research spending remains stagnant in percentage terms, it is time to rethink everything:

• Reconsider the FP10 budget

• Reconsider the distribution within FP10

• Reconsider the ECF budget itself

If the ECF cannot legally fund R&I — and especially basic research — transferring part of its budget to FP10 should be a no-brainer. It is becoming increasingly clear that the more we learn about the proposed FP10 and ECF regulations, the more elements emerge that are, at the very least, surprising — if not outright disappointing.

The forthcoming Commission communication on the “tight connection” between FP10 and the ECF will be a crucial document for the negotiations on both regulations. It is therefore regrettable that it has not yet been published, as its absence leaves far too much room for speculation.

Kurt Deketelaere