Research is essential to find new solutions to improve our lives and face the challenges of today's world. Over the years, EU countries have together developed a common policy to encourage research and innovation in a wide range of disciplines, aiming to become a global leader in scientific discovery. The EU provides considerable funding to boost research and this support has been key to sharing knowledge and solutions to global challenges, such as the COVID 19 pandemic, or the shift to a more digital and ecological society. In part thanks to the EU's efforts, there are over two million active researchers in Europe today.

What can the EU do?

The EU and its national governments share responsibility for strengthening science and technology in Europe, which in turn leads to more competitive businesses and better solutions in our daily lives. They do this by developing a borderless European research area in which researchers, scientific knowledge and technology circulate freely. For its part, the EU has so far focused its efforts on reinforcing investment in research and innovation in the EU.

An EU framework programme for research and innovation fosters cooperation between EU scientific communities, industry and civil society, by providing financial support for transnational activities. The EU is expected to spend billions of euro from 2021 to 2027 under the Horizon Europe programme to support research and development from basic research, to applied research and innovation. Under the previous programme successes included supporting the work of Professor Uğur Şahin, founder and CEO of BioNTech, which developed one of the vaccines against COVID‑19. Besides investment, the EU also encourages researchers to share good practice across the EU. It helps researchers and their knowledge move freely throughout the EU, and promotes gender equality at all stages of academic careers. The EU ensures open science and open data are prioritised in education and research and leverages the digitalisation of science to facilitate the dissemination of knowledge between and beyond the laboratory.

What has the EU done so far?

Since the mid-1980s, the EU framework programmes for research and innovation have given numerous researchers an opportunity to improve their skills and their outreach by getting including in projects beyond their national borders. This is particularly the case of the more than 100 000 researchers who have received Marie Skłodowska Curie programme funding, to boost their initial training and early-stage careers by moving to another country to deepen their scientific project. The European Research Council has also supported more than 14 000 risky and potentially breakthrough individual research projects in 40 countries since 2007. Among the laureates, 12 have so far been awarded a Nobel prize. Other laureates played an important role in understanding COVID‑19 and designing the medical response.

What are the next challenges?

Global challenges such as the climate crisis, or cross-border health issues, call for major international cooperation. In the future, the EU's capacity to foster cooperation to promote knowledge as a global public good will need to be associated with its ability to ensure the EU can cope alone if needed – without ruling out cooperation when possible, not least by adopting through links with researchers in non-EU countries.