Blog post by Stephen Wyber
The EU’s Research and Innovation Days, held on 16-17 September 2025, were organised by the EU’s Directorate General for Research, Technology and Innovation.
Bringing together all the faces you might expect – two Commissioners in person and the President online, an MEP, senior officials and more, the event offered a good opportunity to get an understanding of what the EU wants to prioritise, and the messages that it wants to give.
The programme also underlined the range of the EU’s work in this area – and in particular its current policy priorities – as well as its connections with other dossiers. However, in doing so, it raised the question of how comprehensive and coordinated this approach is.
Choosing From the Toolkit
The different sessions helped highlight the breadth of the toolkit available to the EU in order to achieve its goals.
There were plenty of references to the significant planned increase in the budget for the Horizon Europe programme, as well as reassurance that this would be separate from the new Competitiveness Fund. The exhibition space was also full of projects supported by Horizon, and of course many delegates present were engaged in some way in the programme. The EU’s investment in research makes many cross-border projects possible which might never otherwise have happened.
However, there was also awareness of the power of direct investment in infrastructure. While not launched at the Days, the EU’s Strategy on Research and Technology Infrastructures had come out the day before, and featured regularly in presentations. We also had plenty of references to the role of softer laws and strategies, for example, to enable adoption of Artificial Intelligence, or to improve the environment for start-ups.
Crucially, legislation is also on the table. This comes from an explicit recognition that funding and soft law cannot do everything, and indeed will be more effective if complemented by targeted legislative interventions. The key proposed law here is the European Research Area, an idea whose time had come, noted Research Commissioner Zaharieva. The session focused on this, offered little more from the Commission on the substance of the Act, but did provide an opportunity for others to highlight their hopes around this.
As a number of other participants commented, nonetheless, legislation (outside of Horizon Regulations and rules on research infrastructures) is a relatively rarely used tool in the research space, meaning there is less familiarity with how it can – and cannot – be applied.
Finding Focus?
A look at the programme gives an idea of what is hot or not in EU research discussions at the moment in terms of themes.
A first focus is the desire to overcome the ‘Innovation Paradox’ – the fact that a strong and well-funded research sector appears not to be translating into products, markets and growth. Various business leaders were given the floor to underline their ambitions and to bid for simpler (or at least more predictable laws), possibilities to access finance, and more. This, of course, relates strongly to the Competitiveness Agenda that the President of the Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, has made central to her mandate.
Closely linked to this is the goal of the fifth freedom – the freedom of circulation of knowledge. While some speakers primarily reflected on this in terms of researcher mobility, others recognised the need to support open science further.
In parallel, research freedom was also high on the agenda, with developments in the United States high in people’s minds. The role of this freedom in maximising the productivity and impact of research was made clear, as was its potential as a way of attracting researchers from other parts of the world to come to Europe. Gender equality and broader inclusion were also seen as a priority in the face of ongoing challenges and backsliding.
At the same time, two separate sessions made clear the links between research and the achievement of defence and security goals, which are far more aligned with top-down government policy. There were also discussions about research security, and how to find a proportionate and effective way of managing risk without undue harm to openness. Nonetheless, as tends to happen when the word ‘security’ is used to frame the debate, there is always the risk that freedoms and openness are seen as less relevant.
The potential of technology was also there, with presentations (including from the Executive Vice President of the Commission, Henna Virkkunen) about the EU’s upcoming Apply AI Strategy, on which there was consultation earlier this year.
The key question is whether the EU will be ready to ensure that its researchers are free to make the most of the potential that AI brings, or whether an eagerness to please the creativity industries will make AI training on copyrighted content unattractive.
Finally, there was unsurprising agreement about the need to increase investment into research, with panellists quick to agree with the goal of spending 3% of GDP (as has long been the aim), and even suggesting that the EU should aim for 4%.
Bringing It Together
It is clear that there is diversity, both in the range of tools available to Europe’s research policy makers, and in the goals they are pursuing. These are not even always complementary – research security can risk becoming an excuse to limit openness. Highly directive funding programmes, especially around military research, raise questions about academic freedom.
The same goes with tools. Europe is on the verge of spending an unprecedented sum of money from its budget on research. The question is whether it will have the ambition – and in particular the coordination between its different policies and laws to make sure that this has the needed impact.
Crucially, barriers to making a reality of the single market for knowledge must be removed – not just things like visas or social security coordination, but also copyright rules that make it far harder to carry out research, individually or in collaboration with others.
As highlighted by Kurt Deketelaere, Secretary General of LERU, in his intervention, Europe needs to be ready to state its commitment to a true European Research Area, and create the tools to make this legally enforceable.
22 September 2025
