According to Eurostat, EU research and development expenditure relative to GDP stood at 2.26 % in 2023, while in comparison it stood respectively at 3.59 % in the United States, and 2.56 % in China (2022). In his 2024 report on the future of European Competitiveness, Mario Draghi identified this gap as one of the root causes of the EU's lack of competitiveness. Against this backdrop, the proposed 10th EU framework programme for research and innovation should help to preserve EU research and innovation ecosystem excellence in producing world-class scientific knowledge, while improving the capacity to exploit such knowledge, in particular by scaling-up innovative technologies and solutions. While the programme's architecture is apparently a continuation of the current 2021-2027 Horizon Europe programme, the creation of a European competitiveness fund creates a specific set of rules and governance that will apply to a substantial part of Horizon collaborative research activities. Source : © European Union, 2025 - EP Read more