Europe’s long-term strength depends on sustained investment in excellent research and innovation, CESAER President Orla Feely emphasised at ‘Investing in what makes Europe strong’ in Brussels on 9 September 2026.
Closing the high-level discussion, CESAER President Orla Feely, who also serves as President of University College Dublin, emphasised the need for stable, predictable funding and the conditions that enable fundamental research to advance knowledge, drive technological progress and foster innovation. She urged the research and innovation community to make a stronger collective case for its contribution to Europe’s prosperity and the lives of its citizens.
A summary of her concluding remarks follow.
As we bring today’s discussions to a close, I would like to pick up a few of the themes that have come through particularly strongly.
First, research needs stability, certainty and timeliness. If we want Europe to build the capabilities it will need in ten, twenty or thirty years’ time, researchers and institutions need to be able to plan, invest and collaborate with confidence. Predictability matters.
At the same time, we have heard throughout the afternoon about the importance of maintaining balance across our research and innovation system: between fundamental research and innovation; between STEM and the social sciences and humanities; and between European and national investment.
We cannot look to the European budget alone to solve all of Europe’s challenges. National funding remains an enormously important part of the picture.
If we want a genuinely stronger European research area, European ambition must be matched by ambition and investment in our member states.
And throughout all of this, excellence must remain at the centre. So too must academic freedom, openness, research integrity and our capacity to develop, attract and retain talent.
I want particularly to underline the importance of fundamental research. Everything else ultimately depends upon our capacity to ask questions whose answers — and applications — we may not yet know.
Yesterday’s announcement from OpenAI around solving a major mathematical challenge is an interesting illustration. The importance of such challenges is not necessarily the problem itself. It is the new capability, new ways of thinking and sometimes the unexpected spark that comes from solving them. And this opens up a much bigger discussion that we will need to have about what artificial intelligence will mean for the future of research and for the way knowledge itself is created.
When we turn to FP10, I think our message today has also been very clear.
We need an autonomous Framework Programme, separate from but strongly connected to the European Competitiveness Fund. This is not simply one possible institutional design. It is about ensuring that Europe has a research and innovation system capable of delivering what its future requires.
The challenge for us is therefore not whether excellent research should serve Europe’s competitiveness and prosperity. Of course it should. The question is how we create the conditions for excellent research and innovation supported through FP10 to translate into capabilities, solutions, companies and societal value — without undermining the qualities that make the Framework Programme successful in the first place.
We will also need to think carefully about the evolving relationship between civilian research and defence, including where FP10 and the European Defence Fund intersect. These questions cannot simply be avoided; they need thoughtful and transparent answers.
Finally, one of the strongest messages I take from today is the importance of our collective voice as a research and innovation community.
We know that research and innovation are essential to solving the challenges Europe faces. But knowing that ourselves is not enough.
Citizens need to see why this matters to their lives. Policymakers need to understand why investment today creates capabilities and prosperity tomorrow. We need to persuade. We need to win hearts and minds. And we need to make the case much more confidently for the contribution that research and innovation make to Europe.
The private sector has an important role here as well. We rightly talk about mobilising more private investment. But perhaps we should also be asking how we can enlist companies more strongly as advocates for research and innovation, adding their voices to ours in making the case for ambitious European investment.
Because what Europe has achieved through its Framework Programmes is genuinely remarkable.
The degree of cooperation, cohesion and collaboration across borders that has been built through European research is difficult to find anywhere else in the world. It connects talented people and ideas across countries. It strengthens our societies and economies. And it is an important part of the European way of doing things.
We have achieved an enormous amount through research: for Europe, for our citizens and for the wider world.
Now we have to make that case.
Collectively, confidently and consistently.
And we have to ensure that the next Framework Programme gives Europe the capacity to build on what we have achieved.
For more information, please contact the Secretariat.
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