Recommendations for closely connecting the European Competitiveness Fund to an ambitious and self-standing FP10
03 July 2025
UNICA is proud to support the joint call initiated by The Guild of European Research-Intensive Universities and the League of European Research Universities (LERU), with additional backing from the EASSH – European Alliance for Social Sciences and the Initiative for Science in Europe.
The signatories recommend the European Commission to ensure that FP10 and the ECF are developed as two legally and financially distinct instruments, while maintaining strong complementarity. FP10 should remain focused on funding research and innovation, whereas the ECF should support the deployment and scaling-up of R&I activities.
We urge the Commission to:
- Strengthen the link between FP10 and ECF, with the involvement of challenge managers with expertise in strategic technologies
- Preserve the bottom-up, curiosity-driven nature of European Research Council (ERC), Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions and EIC – European Innovation Council – keeping them free from directionality
- Maintain and reinforce funding for pre-competitive, collaborative R&I in FP10
- Engage all disciplinary perspectives to better serve society and respond to major societal challenges.
Co-funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the authors only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA). Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.