Brussels, Belgium · 7 June 2018 — The European Commission presented its proposal for Horizon Europe, the European Union's next research and innovation framework programme covering the 2021–2027 period. With a proposed budget of €100 billion (in 2018 prices), the programme represented a 30% increase over its predecessor, Horizon 2020, and was designed to consolidate the EU's position as a global leader in collaborative research and innovation while addressing the major societal challenges of the coming decade.
The proposal was part of the broader Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) package presented by the Commission, which outlined the EU's budgetary priorities for the post-2020 period. Horizon Europe was positioned as a central pillar of the EU's strategy for a competitive, green, and digital Europe, with research and innovation framed as essential drivers of sustainable economic growth and societal well-being.
Programme Structure: Three Pillars
Horizon Europe was designed around three main pillars, each addressing a distinct dimension of the research and innovation landscape:
Pillar 1: Excellent Science
Building on the success of the European Research Council (ERC) and the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA), this pillar aimed to support frontier research driven by scientific curiosity and to develop research talent across Europe. The ERC, established in 2007, had become one of the most prestigious research funding mechanisms globally, supporting investigator-driven research across all fields of science and scholarship.
Pillar 2: Global Challenges and European Industrial Competitiveness
This pillar addressed societal challenges through cluster-based research and innovation missions. It integrated the challenge-based approach of Horizon 2020's societal pillars into six thematic clusters:
- Health
- Culture, Creativity and Inclusive Society
- Civil Security for Society
- Digital, Industry and Space
- Climate, Energy and Mobility
- Food, Bioeconomy, Natural Resources, Agriculture and Environment
A distinctive feature of Horizon Europe was the introduction of research missions — high-impact initiatives with specific objectives, timelines, and measurable outcomes, designed to capture public imagination and mobilise resources across disciplines and sectors.
Pillar 3: Innovative Europe
This pillar aimed to strengthen innovation ecosystems across Europe, with the European Innovation Council (EIC) as its flagship component. The EIC was designed to support disruptive, market-creating innovation — bridging the gap between research and commercialisation that had been identified as a persistent weakness in the European innovation landscape compared to the United States.
The European Innovation Council
A particularly notable element of the Horizon Europe proposal was the establishment of the European Innovation Council (EIC). The EIC was conceived as a response to the persistent innovation gap between Europe and its global competitors — the phenomenon by which European research excellence frequently failed to translate into commercial products and companies at the same rate as in the United States or China.
The EIC was designed with two main components:
- EIC Pathfinder: Supporting early-stage, high-risk research with the potential to create entirely new technology areas.
- EIC Accelerator: Providing grants and equity investments to help innovative companies scale up breakthrough technologies.
International Collaboration and Associated Countries
Horizon Europe was designed from the outset as a programme open to international collaboration. The EU's approach to third-country participation in its framework programmes had long been a tool of science diplomacy, enabling research cooperation with non-EU countries through association agreements.
For African researchers and institutions, the Horizon Europe proposal carried significant implications. Under Horizon 2020, African participation in EU-funded research projects had grown steadily, with collaborative projects in health, agriculture, climate, and food security forming important bridges between European and African research communities. Horizon Europe's continued emphasis on global challenges — particularly climate, health, and food security — suggested that opportunities for African-European research collaboration would expand further.
The programme also maintained the principle of openness to participants from low- and middle-income countries, with targeted support for capacity building and mobility. The Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions, in particular, had facilitated thousands of researcher exchanges between European and African institutions, contributing to the development of research capacity on both continents.
The Budget Negotiation Journey
While the May 2018 proposal set the ambition at €100 billion, the actual budget would be determined through the EU's legislative process, involving negotiations between the European Commission, the European Parliament, and the Council of the EU representing member states.
In March and April 2019, the European Parliament and the Council reached a provisional agreement on the legislative structure and rules of Horizon Europe. Crucially, this agreement excluded budget figures, as those were reserved for the overarching MFF negotiations. The Parliament formally endorsed this provisional agreement on 17 April 2019.
Context: Global R&D Investment Landscape
The Horizon Europe proposal was presented against a backdrop of intensifying global competition in research and development investment. According to UNESCO data covering the period, global research spending rose by 19.2% between 2014 and 2018, outpacing the growth of the global economy. Global research intensity (R&D as a percentage of GDP) increased from 1.73% to 1.79%, with the global pool of researchers growing by 13.7% to approximately 8.854 million full-time equivalent researchers.
However, this growth was highly uneven. The G20 nations accounted for roughly 90% of global research expenditure, while approximately 80% of countries continued to devote less than 1% of their GDP to research. For the European Union, maintaining and increasing R&D investment was framed as a strategic necessity to remain competitive with the United States, China, and other emerging innovation powers.
Implications for Research Collaboration
The Horizon Europe proposal reinforced several trends in international research collaboration that were relevant to the broader ReMIT agenda. First, it demonstrated the value of large-scale, multi-year research funding frameworks in providing the stability and scale needed for ambitious collaborative projects. Second, it highlighted the growing importance of mission-oriented research — addressing specific societal challenges through coordinated, multi-disciplinary efforts rather than relying solely on bottom-up scientific curiosity. Third, it signalled a recognition that bridging the gap between research and innovation required dedicated institutional mechanisms, not just increased funding for existing approaches.
For research policy-makers in Africa and other regions, the Horizon Europe model offered both inspiration and a benchmark — a reminder that building world-class research and innovation systems requires sustained political commitment, significant public investment, and institutional architectures designed to connect research excellence with societal impact and commercial application.
Sources:
- European Commission, "Horizon Europe — How it was developed," research-and-innovation.ec.europa.eu
- European Commission, "A Modern Budget for a Union that Protects, Empowers and Defends: The Multiannual Financial Framework 2021-2027," May 2018
- European Parliament, "Provisional Agreement on Horizon Europe," April 2019
- UNESCO, "UNESCO Science Report: The Race Against Time for Smarter Development," 2021 edition (data covering 2014-2018)
- Horizon Europe regulation: Regulation (EU) 2021/695
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Institutional Research Desk · Foresight Institute of Research and Translation
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