On 26 June 2026, the Council of the European Union agreed on a partial negotiating position on Horizon Europe for the period 2028–2034. This is not yet a finalised programme. The final budget, some of the horizontal rules and an agreement with the European Parliament are still pending. However, the Commission has proposed €175 billion, almost twice as much as in the current financial framework. The Council has maintained the direction of a significant increase in funding, leaving the specific amount to be negotiated as part of the overall EU budget.
Óscar Salazar, Director of European Funds at Euro-Funding, considers the closer integration of Horizon with the future European Competitiveness Fund to be the most significant change . The official guidelines confirm this assessment. Both instruments are intended to create a common funding pathway: from research and prototyping, through technology demonstration, to production and scaling up operations. Horizon is no longer solely a grant programme. It is becoming the starting point of the European investment chain.
This shift is based on data, not rhetoric. In 2024, expenditure on research and development in the EU reached €403.1 billion, but still accounted for only 2.2 per cent of the EU’s GDP. Only six countries met the 3 per cent target. The difference is even more pronounced in the private sector. R&D expenditure by the EU’s largest companies rose by 2.9 per cent in 2024, whilst in the US it rose by 7.8 per cent. EU companies accounted for 16.2 per cent of research investment by the global group of the 2,000 largest investors. US companies accounted for 47.1 per cent.
Europe’s problem is therefore not solely the level of scientific research. It lies in its weak ability to translate research into large companies, production lines and infrastructure. The new programme is intended to bridge the gap between public grants and the capital required to commercialise technologies.
Horizon will retain its four pillars, but its structure will become significantly more industry-focused. Research carried out by consortia is to focus, amongst other things, on digitalisation, clean technologies, health, biotechnology, space, industry and defence. The European Innovation Council will be given a broader role in funding high-risk deep tech projects, including dual-use technologies and, to a limited extent, defence solutions.
The Commission also envisages large-scale ‘moonshot’ projects, combining EU, national and private funding. The areas identified include quantum computing, next-generation artificial intelligence, data sovereignty, fusion energy, clean aviation, regenerative therapies and the space economy. These will not be traditional competitions for a single prototype, but multi-year programmes leading to implementation in real-world conditions.
At the same time, the Council wishes to increase Member States’ influence over the programme’s priorities and European partnerships. Governments will gain greater control over funding priorities and their alignment with national industrial strategies. This structure may improve the coordination of investments, but it also increases the significance of political decisions regarding the selection of sectors to be supported. The Council therefore emphasises the autonomy of Horizon, the principle of scientific excellence, and the balance between bottom-up research and projects pursuing EU objectives.
Public-private partnerships are also set to change. The Council proposes more detailed rules for their establishment, monitoring, evaluation and winding up. This will limit the continuation of structures that remain in place despite the original objective having been fulfilled, and facilitate the reallocation of funds to new technological areas.
The simplification of the programme is to be measurable. The Commission has announced fewer call themes and a shorter timeframe between the close of the call and the signing of the contract. The Council has clarified the rules on eligibility and the evaluation of proposals. The value of these changes will be demonstrated by the number of documents required, the time taken to reach a decision, the cost of project administration and the timeliness of payments — not by the number of declarations about reducing red tape.
The direction of the reform is clear: EU research policy is becoming part of industrial, technological and security policy. The sum of €175 billion will only be significant once more projects move from the grant stage to demonstration, production and export. Without this, Europe will fund more research but will not close the gap in scaling up technology.
