Science|Business: Requests for €220 billion FP10 budget ‘not realistic,’ Zaharieva says

Science|Business article by Florin Zubașcu and Juliette Portala, 16 Jan 2025

In wide-ranging interview, the new research commissioner sets out her agenda for the EU Framework Programmes

FP10, the EU’s flagship research and innovation funding programme due to start in 2028, is unlikely to have a budget of €220 billion, Ekaterina Zaharieva, the new Commissioner for start-ups, research and innovation, told Science|Business in an exclusive interview. 

The proposed budget figure was put forward last year in a report by a panel of experts led by Portugal’s former science minister Manuel Heitor, as well as research lobby groups and MEPs who believe a significant increase is necessary to deliver on the EU’s ambition to remain competitive in a world where the US and China are leading in cutting-edge technologies like computer chips and artificial intelligence (AI). 

“Of course, I’m going to work on increasing the budget for the next [Framework] Programme, no doubt about that, but to promise that it will be double is not realistic,” Zaharieva said. “We really have budget constraints.”

An increase to €220 billion means more than doubling the current budget for Horizon Europe, which is just shy of €95 billion, but Zaharieva says that she is “not able to commit on that” and would prefer to simplify the Framework Programme ahead of the start of FP10 in 2028. 

“I really don’t want to start [. . .] from the budget,” the research commissioner said. “First, reforms, simplification, a more focused programme, preserving and strengthening the autonomy of what we have achieved – the European Research Council and the European Innovation Council.”

Several actions are already being planned for 2026 and 2027, the final two years of Horizon Europe. The work programmes setting out the funding opportunities for the last leg of Horizon Europe should already include less prescriptive calls and a two-stage application process that would give more flexibility to researchers. A further expansion of lump-sum calls is also being planned. 

Echoing the findings of the expert group led by Heitor, Zaharieva pointed out that success rates between 8% and 14% mean that applicants are losing time and money on lengthy and complex application procedures. She also wants to simplify the text of the work programmes themselves which, she said, are too long and prescriptive. 

“We don't have time to lose. I don’t want to wait three years for the next Framework Programme to reform.”

For Zaharieva, streamlining Horizon Europe will be beneficial for all member states, including those in central and eastern Europe that suffer from a performance gap with western counterparts. The EU has been trying to close this gap for years.

The member states that joined the bloc after 2004 are still struggling to attract foreign researchers to work on Horizon projects, she said. In some of those countries, the researchers in question can receive up to 40% less money than in richer EU member states. Zaharieva hinted that the issue of salaries will return to the Commission’s political agenda during negotiations for FP10.

The research commissioner said that a concrete proposal for FP10 would be ready after the Commission presents its draft multiannual budget for 2028-2035, which is due 1 July.

Competitiveness and geopolitics

The EU is trying to put research and innovation at the core of efforts to revive its economic competitiveness. In addition to the Heitor report, policy papers published in 2024 by former Italian prime ministers Mario Draghi and Enrico Letta have reached a gloomy conclusion: there is a growing gap in gross domestic product between the EU and US, driven by lagging productivity growth in Europe. This is largely explained by weakness in the EU’s tech sector. 

In the coming decades, growth will no longer come from rising populations, but will have to be driven by increased productivity. And so, in order for its economy to survive, the EU needs to significantly boost both public and private investment in research and innovation to create and scale up new technologies and services.

Not long after the Letta and Draghi reports were published, the expert group led by Heitor also concluded that Horizon Europe was too difficult for many applicants to navigate, its public-private partnerships were inefficient and changes were needed to the European Innovation Council (EIC), its main funder for innovative companies. 

Pillar 2 of Horizon Europe is the EU’s main tool for stimulating private investment in the Framework Programme and includes dozens of public-private partnerships funding collaborative research. But critics say that its structure is too rigid, lacks focus on future technologies and places a heavy administrative burden on partners, driving industry away. 

To fix this, the Heitor report recommended that the EU set up two new councils, one on industrial competitiveness and another on societal challenges, which would attract the private sector into the programme. Heitor said that these two new councils would also help the Commission reform large public-private partnerships and thematic missions that are currently run by Commission services with the support of member states.

Zaharieva said that she had analysed all these proposals and her team, together with the Commission’s directorate-general for research and innovation, is now working on a draft structure for FP10. She admits that Pillar 2 needs to be reformed as it is “too complicated” and a simpler structure would be more appealing to companies, but she does not “want to create more research bodies.”

As for the creation of an Arpa-type agency from the EIC, which the Draghi report said could provide programme managers with more flexibility and experts with more leeway and money to pursue radical innovations, she expressed her support. Such flexibility would allow Europe to keep its advantageous position in the creation of start-ups; that is, if the expected benefits follow.

Obstacles for start-ups

The EU is a front-runner when it comes to creating start-ups but scaling them up into global players is easier said than done, Zaharieva said. “I call this innovation drain: we educate the people here, we have excellent education, huge talent in the EU, great innovators, great researchers, who have an idea, create a start-up, but then we are not able to provide this fast capital that they need to scale up.”

According to the commissioner, 54% of companies in Europe complain about red tape and overbearing regulations, while 24% can’t access capital. So, plans for simplifying the rules and easing access to venture capital should go hand in hand.

The 3% target

Besides efforts by the Commission to boost innovation in the 27-member bloc, Zaharieva also pointed out that all member states should try to strengthen their research performance by ensuring appropriate public and private investment, incentives and reforms.

Asked whether the EU could allocate 3% of its GDP to the research and development field, a target set over two decades ago, Zaharieva said that it was “absolutely achievable.” 

In 2023, the bloc’s share of GDP spent on research and development reached 2.2%.

The problem, however, is not so much public spending as investment from private sector players. “One of the goals that we should have is visiting the member states, speaking with the governments, and brainstorming on what they can do to incentivise the private sector.”

“Our competitiveness is a matter of security. It’s a matter of preserving our democratic order,” she added. “Without investing in research and innovation, we are not going to be competitive. It’s as simple as that.”

Global challenges

Although she deems cooperation “the biggest added value” of Horizon Europe, the commissioner said that the bloc must be more realistic about the security threats that it faces and more strategic when it comes to preserving European innovations. 

Israel is one of the non-EU countries whose researchers are eligible to take part in Horizon projects. Now, some academics are asking for its association to be suspended, claiming that the EU is indirectly funding military technology used against civilians in Gaza.

The Commission’s research directorate has screened all the projects with Israeli universities and scientists participating, and “there is no evidence that they break the rules of the contract,” Zaharieva said. She added that she would not support an exclusion based on nationality. 

Questioned on the re-election of Donald Trump and future transatlantic scientific collaboration, she said that the US was an ally. “We have the same goals and the same interests, so I think it’s really the same in research and innovation.”

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