Changes from report parliamentary committee draft to plenary report

Change 14

Added(a) creating a European competition of ideas, and a funnel to accelerate the development from fundamental science to innovation scale-up, providing support for blue-sky and basic research as well as strengthening the deployment and exploitation of innovative solutions,

Added(b) supporting strategic research initiatives which require large-scale and European collaboration, as the programme’s ability to prioritise these initiatives will be of utmost importance for Europe's ability to address the societal challenges it faces as well as for European industry and SMEs, including for technology maturation and fostering of European ecosystems, to address the competitiveness gap with our global competitors, focussing on the development of priority innovative advanced technologies and their translation into concrete applications of innovative products, processes and services,

Added(c) advancing the ERA, including by addressing the innovation gap in Europe;

59. Recommends that the Commission ensure user-oriented, science-led, effective and efficient implementation of the programme, including by:

Change 15

Changed(a) implementing aan redesignedimproved governance, in lineinspired withby the findings of the Heitor expert group and the Draghi report, addressing the need to improve the programme’s agility, which should:

Change 16

Changedi. be oriented towards facilitating the best sciencescience, technology development and innovation;innovation,

Change 17

Removedii. be less dominated by policy objectives;

Addedii. contribute to EU priorities on the terms of science and innovation,

Removediii. contribute to EU priorities, but on the terms of science and innovation rather than on the terms of policymakers;

Addediii. be based on the principle of self-governance, through which recognised, independent specialists from the relevant field that act in the public interest can advise on how research and innovation can best contribute to the achievement of the policy priorities set by policymakers; recommends, as part of implementing this principle, setting up new Councils in line with the Heitor report to deliver expert advice on the strategic priorities of the programme as well as on the formulation of call texts to ensure their quality,

Removediv. be based on the principle of self-governance, through which top experts from the relevant field can determine how research and innovation can best contribute to the achievement of the policy priorities set by policymakers;

Added(b) including positions for programme managers for the EIC, comparable to programme managers at the American ARPA-style agencies, who are experts appointed from outside the Commission with a proven track record in the relevant field, appointed for a predefined period, as special advisers to the Commissioner responsible for research and innovation to ensure their seniority in the Commission, to manage strategic visionary portfolios of projects, fostering collaboration between projects where relevant across the whole programme for their mutual benefit and set out challenges based on strategic intelligence and with a view to fostering global leadership for Europe in specific areas of their field,

Removed(b) setting up the four councils proposed by the Heitor expert group, composed of eminent experts from the field, to decide on the strategic direction of the different parts of FP10, and in particular a European technology and industrial competitiveness council and a European societal challenges council;

Added(c) implementing a radical simplification in the administrative work related to the application for and management of FP10 projects, following the proposal of the Heitor report to trust first and check later for the application system as well as keeping the information requested in applications to an absolute minimum – no information which is not absolutely necessary for a good qualitative evaluation of the scientific or innovative quality of a proposal should be included in the proposal stage,

Removed(c) including positions for programme managers and external experts with a proven track record in the relevant field, who are appointed as special advisers to the Commissioner responsible for research and innovation to ensure their seniority in the Commission, to manage portfolios of projects across the whole programme and to set out challenges based on strategic intelligence with a view to fostering global leadership for Europe in specific areas of their field;

Added(d) promoting synergies and coordinated programming and implementation with other programmes and sectoral policies in particular with the future new industrial policy and the next important projects of common European interest dealing with research, development and innovation at national and EU level;

Removed16. Recommends that the objective of the part of FP10 on advancing the ERA be to build an excellent, unified ERA; underlines that this requires attracting talent, integrating newcomers, providing access to leading research and technology infrastructures, supporting joint early research programmes with national funders, and developing European universities alliances into European scientific institutes;

Added60. Recommends that the GEPs as eligibility criteria for funding should be maintained in FP10 in their current form as a permanent and integral element of EU research funding requirements;

Removed17. Firmly believes that this part should include a newly established European fellowship programme for researchers at risk, incorporating the lessons learnt from the ongoing preparatory action;

Added61. Recommends that the general objective on advancing the ERA should lead to the development of an excellent, unified and well-functioning European Research Area that attracts talent, integrates newcomers in existing networks and provides access to world leading research and technology infrastructures while remaining open for excellent research proposals irrespective of the supporting research institution and supports joint early research programmes with national funders; underlines that the forthcoming ERA Act needs to ensure increased national investments, national reforms and the elimination of barriers to the free movement of knowledge, technology and researchers, to create the conditions for FP10 to support the achievement of a well-functioning ERA;

Removed18. Believes that an expanded European Research Council (ERC) and European Innovation Council (EIC) should be at the heart of the part of FP10 dealing with a European competition of ideas and that this part should receive half of the FP10 budget; recommends that these programmes be designed so that they create a European, bottom-up funnel for innovation to develop quickly from fundamental science to innovation scale-up; considers that the EIC can only succeed if it can both offer blended finance as a single project and act with the same speed and agility as private actors on the venture capitalist market through a tailor-made legal entity for implementation; underlines that the strengthened autonomy and self-governance of both the ERC and the EIC are crucial to achieving this;

Added62. Considers that the Research Infrastructures, COST and Teaming programmes should contribute to the achievement of this general objective; is convinced that FP10 should provide for an instrument for strategic investments in technology infrastructures; believes that the MSCA is a crucial instrument for achieving this objective as it facilitates the mobility across the EU and between sectors of the best and the brightest who are selected based on the excellence of their proposal; believes that, to further the integration of the ERA, participation of entities from areas with low research performance should be encouraged in the programme;

Removed19. Urges the Commission to design the part of FP10 on strategic deployment such that it focuses on a limited number of pan-European research initiatives with 2040 set as the time horizon and which require cross-border collaboration due to the scale and complexity of the issue in question; believes that this part should consider that these initiatives could take the form of societal missions which address socio-economic and/or ecological challenges, technology missions to accelerate the development of strategic technologies in Europe, or joint undertakings to secure joint investments by industry, Member States and the EU to support research-based competitiveness and the resilience of key sectors in the European economy; believes that all of these initiatives should receive a budget of between EUR 2.5 and 5 billion;

Added63. Firmly believes that FP10 should include a newly established European fellowship programme for researchers at risk, incorporating the lessons learnt from the ongoing preparatory action, to achieve this general objective;

Added64. Continues to support the knowledge triangle approach of the EIT to foster innovation in Europe; believes that a reformed and refocussed EIT should contribute to the achievement of this general objective, given its particular role of integrating the European innovation ecosystem;

Added65. Believes that in FP10 an expanded and interlinked ERC and EIC should be the engine for a European competition of ideas and that an increase of their budgets should be prioritised in the FP10 budget; recommends that these programmes be designed so that they create a European, bottom-up funnel for innovation to develop quickly from fundamental science to innovation scale-up;

Added66. Considers that the EIC can only succeed if it can (i) offer blended finance as a single project and (ii) act with the same predictability and agility as private actors on the venture capital market through a tailor-made legal entity for its implementation; underlines that the strengthened autonomy and self-governance of both the ERC and the EIC are crucial to achieving this; considers in this regard that new options must be investigated to ensure their independence and long-term stability, such as creating dedicated legal entities;

Added67. Considers that the expansion of the EIC and ERC should include increased funding for blue-sky, collaborative and early research projects; recommends this expansion to fund smaller projects and consortia in order to lower the barrier to participation, to increase the success rate and to encourage experimentation with new ideas and collaborations; considers that both the EIC Pathfinder and the ERC Synergy Grants have a role to play in this expanded space for bottom-up collaborative research; underlines that the EIC Pathfinder should continue to fund Challenges, but they should be reformed from Challenge-based calls to ARPA-style Challenges which leave space for bottom-up proposals while securing strategic technology development;

Added68. Urges the Commission to design FP10 such that it can effectively support strategic research, technology development and deployment initiatives, focussing on a limited number of priorities to support research-based competitiveness and the resilience of key sectors in the European economy as well as to address societal challenges with 2040 as the time horizon and which require cross-border collaboration due to the scale and complexity of the issue at hand; believes that these initiatives could take the form of (i) societal mission-oriented programmes which address socio-economic and/or ecological challenges, (ii) technology mission-oriented programmes to accelerate the development of strategic technologies in Europe, and (iii) joint undertakings to secure joint investments by the private sector, Member States and the EU;

Added69. Is furthermore convinced that a share of the budget of FP10 should remain available for higher Technology Readiness Level collaborative calls to support strategic collaboration not covered in the strategic initiatives, in particular this budget could be used for strategic calls developed by the programme managers to further develop an emerging ecosystem;

Added70. Emphasises that mission-oriented programmes under FP10 should be fundamentally differently organised than the current missions in Horizon Europe; calls on the Commission to implement mission-oriented programmes under FP10 that set objectives that can be reached through R&I, implemented through open calls for bottom-up ideas, fostering interdisciplinarity, including between SSHA-driven and technology-driven activities, to achieve the mission, and managed through a portfolio approach building on the experience of the pilot under Horizon Europe; underlines that the successful management of these mission-oriented programmes requires outstanding expertise on the topic of the missions rather than generic expertise;

Added71. Underlines that procedures for obtaining support under FP10 must align with companies’ realities; is of the opinion that, to this end, an industry-oriented application procedure, building on the experience of the Fast Track to Innovation from Horizon 2020, should be re-introduced under FP10, in particular where the programme aims to support strategic initiatives;

Added72. Is convinced that a strategic approach to international cooperation is more important than ever; believes that global collaboration in science is essential for the knowledge development of humanity, but cannot be pursued in a naive manner; recommends that the Commission develops a clear strategic policy framework for its decisions on international collaboration which includes (i) a clear policy on the association of third countries which recognises that association is a tool for political partnerships, (ii) a structured process for determining how open or closed FP10 projects need to be to foster the best possible research while also considering the strategic interests of the EU, and (iii) a plan to boost global collaboration through the programme;

Added73. Underlines the importance of FP10’s compliance with the Council recommendation on research security; calls on the Commission to include in the strategic approach whether the right balance between security and openness can be best achieved at the level of programmes, calls or selected projects; believes as well that, beyond the agility of the framework programme itself, delivering resilience must be mainstreamed to become an integral part of all the applied research, development and innovation activities of the next framework programme, in a differentiated manner depending on the topic and the type of activity; believes in particular that innovation activities close to the market must take into account the risk of increased dependency on third countries stemming from them, and the necessary enhanced strategic autonomy of the EU;

Added74. Recommends in principle maintaining the civilian nature of the next framework programme and leaving calls specifically for defence applications to the successor of the European Defence Fund; urges the Commission further to develop options to strengthen the synergies between civilian and defence R&D spending; calls on the Commission in particular to explore how the exploitation of dual-use potential can be maximised, especially through interventions after project selection rather than in call or programme definition; underlines that academic freedom includes the right of researchers to decide to what research and development they wish to contribute;

Added75. Recommends that the programme should recognise the role of interdisciplinary research in addressing societal challenges, also including a better integration of SSHA; reiterates the need for sufficient funding for research projects that address societal challenges and that fall within the area of SSHA;

Added76. Recommends the introduction of research actions in order to foster and encourage more lower Technology Readiness Level research and basic research;

Added77. Notes that the allocation of at least 35 % of Horizon Europe expenditure to climate objectives served the general EU objective of mainstreaming climate actions into its sectoral policies and funds; considers this an ambitious target to ensure that FP10 adequately funds science, research and innovation that support the EU climate objectives;

Added78. Underlines that any potential application of the Do No (Significant) Harm principle under FP10 should, in line with Article 33(2)d of the Financial Regulation, be set out in the FP10 legislation;

Added79. Recommends that the central role of standardisation in driving innovation, enhancing competitiveness, and ensuring impactful, market-ready solutions be recognised in FP10 by ensuring that costs associated with standardisation activities, where relevant in projects, are clearly recognised as eligible for reimbursement under the programme as well as by offering support to researchers in their standardisation activities;

Added80. Insists that rules regarding the association of third countries to FP10 should require that these associations can only be concluded through international agreements, which requires the consent of the Parliament for each specific association to a specific EU programme, including for the scope of that association;

Added81. Notes that FP10 should take into account the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) as a way to foster European research and development while identifying specific risks that may arise form an abusive use of AI in the scientific environment and the corresponding mitigation measures;

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82. Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the Council, the Commission and the governments of the Member States.