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Charting INESC’s Future in EU Research Funding and Positioning

Policy Report

A summary report capturing the key discussions, findings and follow-up actions from the INESC Brussels HUB’s 2026 Summer Meeting on European research infrastructure priorities.

Executive summary

The INESC Brussels HUB Winter Meeting 2026 convened senior EU and Portuguese policymakers, European Commission officials, European research leadership, and institutional strategists to discuss the preparatory phase of the next Multiannual Financial Framework (2028-2034) and the proposed design of FP10 and the European Competitiveness Fund (ECF). Portugal’s simultaneous creation of AI2, the Agency for Research and Innovation, provided a real-time governance test. Discussions were structured along two intersecting axes: vertical governance alignment (EU-national-regional-institutional coherence) and horizontal sectoral integration (R&I as enabler of industrial, digital, green, and defence transitions).

Key takeaways

  • Strategic priorities are largely aligned across EU and national levels; what now determines results is the capacity to carry them out across levels, sectors and stages of technology development.
  • Governance quality acts as a structural multiplier: the same investment produces stronger outcomes where institutions are more capable.
  • The operational relationship between FP10 and the European Competitiveness Fund needs clarifying early, so Member States can align their national strategies.
  • Portugal's new Agency for Research and Innovation (AI2) is a live test of whether multilevel, cross-sector R&I governance can be deliberately built in.
  • Europe's R&D gap is structural, not cyclical, and closing it will require more private investment, better access to scale-up capital, and wider use of public procurement for innovation.
  • Slow administrative timelines, fragmented scale-up finance and underused public procurement of innovation keep promising research and start-ups from growing into market-scale impact.

Authors & download

Authors: INESC Brussels HUB policy team
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Last reviewed / validation

17/08/2026