30 Jan 2025
FP10 will have to be more agile and future-proof than Horizon Europe, report says
On 29 January 2025, the Center for European Policy Studies (CEPS) presented a report called "Towards an ambitious FP10" in Brussels. The report was drafted with the support of the Wellcome Trust and Imperial College. It presents a vision and possible pathways towards the next Framework Programme, based on an in-depth analysis of stakeholder views, as well as guidance from an Advisory Group of 15 experts with wide-ranging, world-class expertise on research and innovation.
The key take-aways from the report are as follows:
- FP 10 must be more flexible and “future-proof” than Horizon Europe. It will have to juggle a multiplicity of objectives, such as boosting European competitiveness, achieving the EU’s sustainability goals to help the world remain within planetary boundaries, and strengthening Europe’s economic security and resilience.
- Beyond the current pillars, the report proposes a “brain structure” for FP 10 with a core, two hemispheres (industrial competitiveness, multi-stakeholder partnerships for global public goods) and a cortex. The hemispheres should feature different rules, a different blend of instruments and different forms of governance.
- The report also addresses the topic of dual-use. The authors state that their research would have broadly confirmed that separating actions related to industrial competitiveness from initiatives on global challenges could help solve the dual-use puzzle. Besides providing for, and even strengthening, the funding of excellent science on general-purpose technologies, in the industrial competitiveness domain dual-use funding could be allowed under specific conditions, whereas the same possibility would not be available for global challenges.
The report can be downloaded here: