Excellence and cohesion: no to a two-speed Europe

Negotiations on the 10th Framework Programme for Research and Innovation (FP10) and the European Competitiveness Fund (ECF) for 2028–2034 are entering a decisive phase. Research funding now has to compete with defence, energy, and security. Yet the 2024 reports by Mario Draghi, Enrico Letta, and Manuel Heitor all reached the same conclusion: the European economy cannot be competitive without knowledge and innovation, the true source of which is research and development. Enrico Letta goes even further by calling for a fifth freedom—the free movement of knowledge and innovation. In the current discussions, however, we are witnessing what Manuel Heitor called a dangerous contradiction at the CESAER Annual Meeting in Lisbon at the end of October 2026: European leaders call for competitiveness, but hesitate to invest in it.

The danger is that the debate has become stuck in national positions. Some European countries insist that excellence must be the sole criterion for programme investments. Widening countries, by contrast, are fighting to keep and strengthen dedicated allocations for their national priorities, including research and innovation infrastructures. Yet the debate risks being dominated by the same underlying question: how much will each country get back? Trench warfare over “juste retour” and “net operating balances” will ultimately slow down Europe as a whole and divide it into a two-speed scientific continent.

The dispute between excellence and widening is an artificial dilemma. Without uncompromising excellence, Europe will clearly lose the global competition. Without cohesion, however, it will fragment from within, and a fragmented Union will lose as well. No European country, however wealthy or scientifically advanced, is large enough on its own to hold its ground globally, least of all alongside the United States and China. Europe has the necessary scale only when it acts together. That, after all, is the very purpose of the European Union. Europe’s diversity should be seen not as an obstacle, but as an advantage. Effort and support should focus on integrating and capitalising on the strengths of all member states. This was one of the key conclusions of the EUA Funding Forum 2026, hosted by the European University Association in mid-October at Brno University of Technology.

It is therefore time to change the narrative. Involving widening regions must be neither charity nor a discount on quality. It is an investment in a broader, more resilient, and more evenly distributed European excellence. Widening countries may sometimes lack advanced infrastructure or experience in managing large-scale projects, but they certainly do not lack talent or ideas. And let us be frank: the weak uptake of research in innovation and applications, along with poor commercialisation, are challenges facing not just one part of the Union, but Europe as a whole.

The path to efficiency does not lie in making every funding framework and instrument do the same thing. We need a coherent architecture of financial tools. FP10 should remain an autonomous programme funding excellent research and innovation, complemented by an ECF that accelerates technological innovation and deployment, both offering transparent competition with fair and equal opportunities to participate. Cohesion and national funds should build capacity and serve as a bridge to that competition. This does not mean removing widening from the Framework Programme. The most effective widening instruments should continue, building on their demonstrated European added value. Their success must be judged by how well they achieve their intended objectives, not by how much funding they “give back” to individual countries. Poland is a prime example of how cohesion funds can support excellence, having recently transferred a portion of its cohesion funds to support its institutions’ participation in Horizon Europe. We must also invest in results rather than processes, prioritising productivity and excellence while recognising the long-term scientific, societal and economic impact and added value of research.

The greatest benefit of excellence-based grant schemes (such as the ERC) lies not merely in the funding awarded, but in how they cultivate the entire research ecosystem. Successful projects create the conditions to attract talented researchers, form new research groups, and develop international networks. They also raise the ambitions of the institutions competing for them. This multiplier effect represents one of the most significant benefits of European programmes rooted in excellence.

Technical and research universities play an indispensable role in this development. Institutions such as Brno University of Technology (BUT), operating in a Widening region, pursue cutting-edge research with international impact and clear global ambitions. As one of the most successful Czech participants in Horizon Europe, BUT repeatedly demonstrates its ability to succeed in international excellence-based competition in areas strategic for Europe’s future competitiveness. A prime example is semiconductors: thanks to concentrated expertise and national research infrastructure, BUT hosts the National Competence Centre for Semiconductors. As one of 30 such centres across Europe, it supports the European Chips Act and bridges academic research with industry needs. At BUT, it is clear that excellence rooted in a specific place can drive regional transformation: partly thanks to our research, high-tech sectors such as electron microscopy and space technologies have gained tremendous momentum in Brno. Our partnerships with leading European universities, demonstrated through our membership in the EULiST alliance and the prestigious CESAER network, show that when universities join forces across the continent, they create synergies that benefit all of Europe.

We therefore call for abandoning the false dilemma between excellence and Widening, along with the logic of national return. Let us ask what Europe needs, not what each country stands to gain. Let us strive for equal opportunities to participate in funding schemes. As CESAER, an association of leading universities of science and technology, let us jointly advocate for an FP10 and ECF that are ambitious, adequately funded, and open to talent from across all of Europe. One Europe, shared standards of excellence, and the same chance for every country to meet them.

By Ladislav Janíček, Rector of Brno University of Technology