On Friday, May 23, European ministers will meet at the Competitiveness Council to focus on the next EU Research and Innovation program.
Together with 12 other European organizations, we have signed a joint letter to EU institutions ahead of this meeting. We urge policymakers to maintain Europe’s long-term excellence in research and innovation (R&I) by enabling a powerful, stable, and predictable R&I framework to support the innovators building Europe’s future.
“Europe’s future competitiveness and climate goals depend on strong cleantech innovation. Yet many breakthroughs stall in the ‘valley of death’ between demonstration and deployment. To bridge this gap, the next EU research and innovation component must provide at least €220 billion and a stable, predictable funding framework focused on scale-up and innovation procurement.”
– Marlène Siméon, Head of EU Policy, FCA
The EU has a comparative advantage in cleantech innovation. From 2016 to 2021, 30% of the world’s green inventions came from Europe, compared with 19% from the US, and 13% from China.
To stay the course, we propose the following principles to guide the design of future EU research and innovation funding:
✅ Increase the EU budget for research and innovation to €220 billion
✅ Bridge the gap between R&I and scale-up financing, covering the whole innovation journey from the first ideas, the lab and to the market
✅ Focus funding on strategic cleantech priorities and breakthrough innovation
✅ Strengthen and protect the European Innovation Council (EIC)
✅ Expand and deepen public-private partnerships
✅ Prioritize collaborative research
✅ Use innovation procurement to build lead markets
✅ Align regulation and tenders with innovation goals
Cleantech and industrial R&I is a central piece of the puzzle. A well-resourced, strategically focused future framework for research and innovation must be at the core of the EU’s next Multiannual Financial Framework.
Learn more about our proposals in the open letter here!