EUA calls for focused European Partnerships and continued EOSC support

The European University Association (EUA) calls for a more focused, accessible and coherent European Partnerships landscape under the 2028–2034 Horizon Europe programme. In its response to the Commission's public consultation, EUA urges policymakers to clearly distinguish funding responsibilities between Horizon Europe and the European Competitiveness Fund (ECF). Horizon Europe should prioritise research and innovation at low and medium technology readiness levels, while industrial scale-up, deployment and market uptake should be supported through the ECF or other appropriate instruments.

EUA also stresses that Partnerships must complement, rather than replace, open collaborative research. It calls for the majority of Pillar II funding to remain available for actions outside Partnerships, with this safeguard maintained in the next Framework Programme’s legal basis.

While supporting efforts to rationalise the Partnership landscape, EUA warns against creating overly large, complex structures. Mergers should demonstrate clear added value, sunset clauses should be strengthened, and simplification should improve access for universities and newcomers.

The association particularly highlights the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) Partnership, calling for it to remain a distinct initiative with a dedicated work programme.

According to EUA, EOSC connects distributed research resources while preserving ownership and autonomy, supports secure access to findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable (FAIR) data, and strengthens reproducibility and cross-border collaboration. It also helps Europe develop and control the infrastructures, data and standards underpinning future research and innovation.

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