{"id":451087,"date":"2026-04-22T11:07:37","date_gmt":"2026-04-22T09:07:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/2026\/04\/22\/il-futuro-della-ricerca-nel-prossimo-bilancio-ue-e-il-suo-rapporto-con-mercato-e-autonomia-strategica-alleurocamera-levento-apre\/"},"modified":"2026-04-22T12:37:46","modified_gmt":"2026-04-22T10:37:46","slug":"future-of-research-in-the-next-eu-budget-and-its-link-to-markets-and-strategic-autonomy-apre-event-at-the-european-parliament","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/2026\/04\/22\/future-of-research-in-the-next-eu-budget-and-its-link-to-markets-and-strategic-autonomy-apre-event-at-the-european-parliament\/","title":{"rendered":"Future of research in the next EU budget and its link to markets and strategic autonomy: APRE event at the European Parliament"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brussels – Institutions, businesses, and experts came together<\/strong> to tackle a \u201cdecisive moment\u201d for the future of European research and innovation policies<\/strong>, and for Italy\u2019s role in this context. The occasion for launching this dialogue was the event \u2013 which attracted over 350 participants, 150 of whom were from Italy \u2013 entitled Italian research and innovation in Europe: towards the new Horizon Europe and the Competitiveness Fund<\/a> organised yesterday afternoon (21 April) at the European Parliament<\/strong> by the Agency for the Promotion of European Research (APRE)<\/a>, the Italian association which has been supporting our country\u2019s participation in EU research projects since 1990.<\/p>\n

To \u201cstrengthen Italy\u2019s position in the European debate on research, innovation and competitiveness\u201d ahead of the adoption of the Multiannual Financial Framework<\/strong> (MFF) of the European Union for the period 2028\u20132034, the panelists shared their perspectives on the two key instruments for the R&D (Research and Development) sector: Horizon Europe<\/a>, the main EU program for research funding, which for the current seven-year period had a budget of 95.5 billion euros<\/strong> and could reach 175 billion euros<\/strong> under the European Commission\u2019s new proposal, and the emerging European Competitiveness Fund<\/a>, a package of financial instruments designed to strengthen the competitiveness of businesses<\/strong> across Europe and support their investment in strategic sectors. <\/span><\/p>\n

APRE President Maria Cristina Pedicchio<\/strong> opened the event and immediately emphasized the significance of the occasion. This phase of drawing up the new 2028\u20132034 multiannual European budget “is a very important step for Europe and, consequently, for Italy”. The new programming is already \u201cwell into the definition phase,\u201d and the main issue concerns the relationship between research and industrial application<\/strong>. \u201cWe have excellent research, but we often fail to translate it into market success and economic growth,\u201d <\/strong>she noted. In fact, \u201cthe debate on the future Horizon Europe and the European Competitiveness Fund does not concern just two funding programs, but the way in which Europe intends to link research, innovation, competitiveness, industrial capacity, and strategic autonomy.<\/strong>\u201d Hence, the need to strike a balance between Horizon and the new Competitiveness Fund, in a win-win scenario where \u201cboth research and industry must benefit.\u201d In this context, APRE\u2019s initiative aims to \u201cprovide space for dialogue and support\u201d between Italy and EU institutions through \u201canalysis and data.\u201d <\/p>\n

This theme was also taken up in the message sent by the Minister for Universities and Research Anna Maria Bernini<\/strong>, who emphasized the need to ensure “scientific autonomy, stability, and separate governance”<\/strong> for Horizon, while maintaining an effective dialogue with the Competitiveness Fund. Among the priorities identified were scientific excellence, administrative simplification, and support for young researchers.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>
The venue for the event organized by APRE on Italian research and innovation in Europe. Source: Eunews<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\n

On the political front, Elena Donazzan<\/strong> (ECR), MEP for Fratelli d\u2019Italia and Vice-Chair of the Committee on Industry, Research and Energy (ITRE), emphasized the need to turn strategies into concrete results. \u201cWhat we write today will have repercussions for years to come,\u201d she said, highlighting the urgency of strengthening technology transfer to local areas. \u201cWe must translate the vision into action,\u201d she insisted, identifying as a priority the ability to \u201cenable Italy to make the most of this extraordinary opportunity\u201d. Donazzan also warned about the risk of European deindustrialization:<\/strong> \u201cIt means social impoverishment and a loss for the economic system. We can only make a difference by focusing on intelligence and innovation.\u201d <\/p>\n

The other vice-chair of the ITRE Committee, PD MEP Giorgio Gori<\/strong> (S&D), took a similar line, framing the issue in geopolitical terms. “Competitiveness is now at the heart of European policy, because the continent\u2019s strategic autonomy depends on it.<\/strong>” Although the new framework will combine a strengthened Horizon program with a fund explicitly dedicated to industrial development, the former mayor of Bergamo warned that “this must not mean subordinating research to industry<\/strong>, because we would risk stifling it.” For this reason, the European Parliament insists on governance by independent experts<\/strong> and on safeguarding Horizon’s civilian nature<\/strong>, because “defense must be funded exclusively by the Competitiveness Fund.”<\/p>\n

A broader perspective was offered by Forza Italia\u2019s Letizia Moratti <\/strong>(EPP), the third Italian member of the ITRE Committee, who called for \u201cmoving beyond the patterns of the past\u201d in a Europe that \u201cis not growing.\u201d The figures speak for themselves: the weight of the manufacturing sector on GDP has dropped from 20 percent to 14 percent over twenty years<\/strong>. In this context, \u201cresearch is the strategic lever for growth, especially when it translates into innovation,<\/strong>\u201d she said, whilst stressing the need for a paradigm shift: “We can no longer work in \u2018silos\u2019”, but instead we need “an integrated vision that brings together the public and private sectors, institutional levels and different areas of expertise<\/strong>, even if it means giving up a small part of our autonomy” for the sake of a broader project. <\/p>\n

Alongside the political debate, the event also provided an analysis of data on Italian participation in Horizon Europe<\/strong>. The director of APRE, Marco Falsetti<\/strong>, highlighted both positives and negatives: when Italy coordinates projects, it manages to bring back to the country around 35 percent of the funding made available by the Commission<\/strong>, compared to a European average of 40 percent<\/strong>. Although there was a decline in 2024, according to Farsetti, \u201cthis is not a dramatic problem, but it highlights a quality issue\u201d that is also linked to the \u201cdiversion of the best resources towards other commitments<\/strong>\u201d, such as the NRRP. The challenge now is to \u201ccapitalize on what has been built\u201d and bring it back into the European program. In fact, the data on Italy\u2019s performance in Horizon Europe confirm the country\u2019s position among the program\u2019s most significant players. According to the figures presented, updated to 11 January 2026, Italy has secured 4.46 billion euros in funding from Horizon Europe for the 2021\u201325 period, with a financial return of<\/p>\n

8.43 percent of the total budget allocated. The country ranks third in Europe in terms of the number of participants and fifth in terms of overall financial return. Therefore, according to APRE, the data “show that Italy has a strong presence in Horizon Europe, but is still called upon to strengthen its capacity to transform this presence into project leadership and into projects that are, on average, financially stronger.<\/strong>” In this context, “the Brussels meeting focused on the most sensitive issues in the negotiations on the future European framework for research and innovation: the relationship between Horizon Europe and the European Competitiveness Fund, the overall governance of the new system, the role of Member States in setting priorities, and the Framework Program\u2019s ability to remain autonomous, transparent, and credible even within a framework of closer coordination with European competitiveness policies,\u201d APRE sais in a press release. <\/p>\n

A broader perspective on the global context was provided by Lucia Aleotti<\/strong>, a member of the Menarini Board of Directors and Vice President of Confindustria with responsibility for the Research Center. The Florentine businesswoman emphasized that the current phase is \u201cvery delicate and undergoing rapid transformation\u201d and that \u201ctechnological developments are compounded by geopolitical disruptions<\/strong>\u201d. In such a context, according to Aleotti, “Europe must strengthen its competitiveness, and this requires a decisive technological leap.” While Confindustria supports the Commission\u2019s proposal for a new Competitiveness Fund and the strengthening of Horizon Europe, it also warns of the need to \u201cmaintain a single governance structure for the two programs<\/strong>\u201d. <\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

While there remains a significant gap between this final \u2013 and decisive \u2013 point and the position put forward by the Italian government in the message sent by Minister Bernini, yesterday\u2019s discussion revealed a point of consensus: Europe stands at a crossroads. On the one hand, the need to strengthen basic research and scientific autonomy<\/strong>; on the other, the urgency of transforming knowledge into innovation and competitiveness<\/strong> with concrete results on the market. A complex game that will be played out in the coming months in the <\/strong>trilogues<\/a><\/strong> between Parliament, the Commission, and the Member States.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At the forum organised by the Agency for the Promotion of European Research, institutions, politicians and experts discussed the future of the EU\u2019s two main instruments \u2013 Horizon and the Competitiveness Fund \u2013 for funding research, development and competitiveness in the 2028\u20132034 budget<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7899,"featured_media":451072,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"1","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"1","show_popup_post":"1","show_comment_section":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"0","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"0"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[25705],"tags":[33839,26190,33544,33840,33841,28382,33531,33842],"class_list":["post-451087","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-competitivita-ue","tag-confindustria-en-2","tag-donazzan","tag-fondo-ue-per-la-competitivita","tag-gori","tag-horizon-europe-en","tag-moratti","tag-ricerca-e-sviluppo"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/451087","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7899"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=451087"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/451087\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":451088,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/451087\/revisions\/451088"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/451072"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=451087"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=451087"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=451087"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}