Science Europe urges policymakers to preserve key values of European Partnerships

In a recently published position on European Partnerships, Science Europe calls to preserve key values of European Partnerships in FP10. According to Science Europe, Partnerships play a crucial role in pooling national resources, aligning research and innovation agendas across national, regional, and sectoral levels, and encouraging cooperation with industry and civil society. They also help researchers and innovators with limited international experience take part in EU-level initiatives through familiar national and regional structures.

Science Europe said that national research funding and performing organisations are central to the implementation of European Partnerships and make a major contribution to the European Research Area by building long-term research and innovation collaboration across borders and disciplines.

At the same time, Science Europe has raised concerns about the policy direction emerging in negotiations on the 2028–2034 Framework Programme. It warned that increased centralisation of financial management and more standardised implementation models could create serious feasibility challenges for many national organisations and may even make future participation impossible in some cases.

Science Europe also said that proposals to reduce the number of Partnerships and favour larger consortia could make access more difficult, especially for new participants, while risking the exclusion of important research areas such as the Social Sciences, Humanities and the Arts.

Science Europe is urging policymakers to ensure the full involvement of relevant stakeholders in the development, governance and implementation of Partnerships. It called on co-legislators to carefully reconsider the current direction of FP10 negotiations in order to preserve the value of this key instrument.

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