Nothing concentrates the Brussels mind like a grid of coloured boxes. Three such grids, prepared with input from Commission services and dated September 2026, now trace the possible futures of European research partnerships: Portfolio A holds eighteen, Portfolio B twenty-four, Portfolio C twenty-eight. Sixty partnerships exist today, whichever grid prevails, at least half the landscape disappears. Let me say plainly what many in this town think and few write down: the cut is defensible, the sequencing is not. Europe is converging on a number before it has agreed a purpose, and in policy, as in surgery, it matters greatly whether you decide what must be saved before deciding how much to remove.
We have watched this film before. Horizon 2020 ended with nearly 120 partnership instruments; Horizon Europe’s celebrated rationalisation cut them to 49; within a single strategic plan the portfolio crept back to sixty, absorbing roughly a quarter of the programme’s budget along the way. The moral is awkward for reformers: a haircut without a governing idea grows back. Partnerships multiply for reasons that are respectable one at a time; every community able to organise itself will eventually request one, and the system has never possessed a principled way of saying no. Fixing the count without fixing the refusal mechanism guarantees a third round of this exercise in 2034.
To be fair, this reform does have a vision, the Commission is merely coy about stating it. Assemble the evidence. A framework programme docked to a European Competitiveness Fund with four industrial policy windows. A consultation questionnaire that asks, with a straight face, whether budgets should carry minimum shares for close-to-market activity, whether calls should be deployment-linked, and whether joint undertakings should be larger, broader or indeed singular (!!!). An expert group, formally the Commission Expert Group on the Design and Selection of Directional Initiatives, whose very name retires the word partnership.
So… I think this is the time to say: partnerships exist to industrialise. As a response to the Draghi diagnosis, to a decade of technologies invented in Europe and capitalised elsewhere, the sentence has real force and meaning! It deserves to be written down, debated and owned. So why is it not written anywhere and we keep on having surveys that serve a pre-determined top-down vision but pretend to be very open and everything matters. It would be better just to be clear! Say what you came for and ask for people’s opinion and even support on how to reach the goal without compromising what is important.
It is also important to say clearly that the status quo has few defenders, for good reason, and this column is no lament for it. The prior task is to name what the instrument uniquely does before deciding where it is dispensable. The case for partnerships was always commitment. They remain the only device in the Union’s toolbox that extracts multiannual, signed commitments from industry and Member States alike: some €31 billion pledged against €24 billion of Horizon Europe money in the first strategic plan. Joint undertakings supply what we can’t get in calls for proposals: legal personality, budgetary continuity and industrial co-ownership, which is why aviation, rail and metrology possess roadmaps that outlive commissioners. The co-funded partnerships perform a quieter miracle (and I really mean what I wrote: miracle!): they persuade dozens of national funding agencies to programme money together. Beneath it all sits two decades of accumulated trust, the one asset in this field that cannot be procured. A reform that books these as legacy overheads will discover their price only when it tries to rebuild them…
For joint undertakings, the coming Single Basic Act will decide whether the vision acquires a governance worthy of it, and three questions will do most of the work. Who sits at the table? The proposal that private partners themselves be competitively and openly selected is the most quietly radical line in the entire dossier: composition becomes a criterion rather than an inheritance, and it is the only reliable antidote to incumbent capture, a disease that worsens as tables grow larger and fewer. Who steers? Broad, consolidated undertakings will need boards that can reallocate across themes as priorities move, and public authorities with the analytical muscle to give direction rather than just co-sign it. Who answers? If these bodies are to help deploy Competitiveness Fund money, as the consultation contemplates, they will need the accountability of agencies, with periodic re-selection and sunset clauses.
The consultation open until 16 October will not settle any of this on its own, and its closed questions are candidly pre-cooked. Respondents are invited to grade the Commission’s own diagnosis on five-point scales. The open fields, on the other hand, ask which themes deserve a partnership at all, which deserve the heavy machinery of a treaty-based body, and, in question 2.7, which current practices should be carried into the new design. That last one is where the baby gets saved from the bathwater. The Commission concedes that the exercise is no formal assessment of past performance, which leaves respondents, and the interim evaluation evidence, to keep the redesign anchored in the record rather than the mood.
Whether the final grid holds eighteen, twenty-four or twenty-eight boxes matters far less than whether each box can answer three questions in a single sentence: what it exists to change, who commits what, and how success will be judged. Eighteen with answers would serve Europe better than sixty without. Between now and 16 October, everyone who has built, funded or worked inside these instruments can put answers on the record. The INESC institutes will. Every research and technology organisation in Europe should.
EU funding delivered through national and regional programmes will be channeled through National and Regional Partnership Plans (NRPPs), and the R&I budget is not ring-fenced.
The Council’s partial general approach of the National and Regional Partnership Plans (NRPPs) takes stock of the RRF logic, with the stated aim of a simpler, more coherent and more effective budget. It merges Cohesion Policy, the Common Agricultural Policy and Home Affairs into a single European Fund. Each Member State should implement it through the NRPPs and make its own selection of funding priorities.
JRC’s new Security Campus can give the INESC-JRC MoU a new focus on the research of security domains
On 10 September 2026, the Joint Research Centre (JRC) launched a Security Research and Innovation Campus at its Ispra site as part of ProtectEU, the European Internal Security Strategy. The new research campus brings several JRC laboratories together as a hub to help deploy cutting-edge security technologies across Europe. It is organised around six pillars reflecting key security challenges: space, connectivity and quantum; border management; crisis management; defence; internal security; and nuclear security. These are not designed to work in silos and will be interconnected to tackle complex security challenges.
State of the Union 2026: Critical R&I priorities for next year
President Ursula von der Leyen‘s State of the Union speech on 16 September grouped this year’s priorities under six headings: security and defence, critical technologies, social adaptation, climate change, competitiveness and social prosperity, and a new geopolitical strategic partnership with Canada. Within the forthcoming R&I agenda, the commitments center on taking AI from research into industrial and public use across five sectors (health, transport, agri-food, advanced manufacturing, and defence and space), strengthening Europe’s own computing capacity, and managing the risks of the most advanced, self-improving models. The speech also announced the first-ever associated membership of a non-EU state, that of Canada, to deepen cooperation on technology, energy, critical minerals and AI.
European Partnerships: A changing landscape
The European Commissionis redesigning the landscape around European Partnerships. The selection process will be based on a portfolio that will be deployed in the future FP10 and ECF, with configurations in the DGs been decided now. Making sure that the mistakes of the past won’t happen, i.e., lack of strategic orientation, overlaps and weak impact, the European Commission, along with an Expert Group dedicated to this end is already processing some scenarios about the future themes.
Without clear commitments about which of these will be co-programmed or implemented through joint undertakings, the partnerships are expected to be at least half of the ones that are now in place (60), with some expecting that they can even decrease to 18. The three alternative portfolio configurations are built into the sections: energy-mobility-water-environment-manufacturing and circularity-food and agriculture-health-digital.
Source: Internal EARTO WG RD&I
EU Innovation Act proposed by the European Commission to close the innovation gap
Europe does not lack ideas or research talent, but too many innovations born in European labs are developed, financed and scaled up elsewhere. The Commission’s proposal for an EU Innovation Act targets that gap with three common EU frameworks:
The Governance of Technology Infrastructures (TIs) at an EU level is being decided now
Technology infrastructures help close the innovation gap and support EU competitiveness and industrial policy, and they serve technological sovereignty by giving SMEs, large companies and start-ups access to cutting-edge solutions. The European Strategy on Research and Technology Infrastructures calls for a pan-European investment roadmap, harmonised access conditions and enhanced access for industrial users and an overarching governance body, the EU Forum on Technology Infrastructures.
What now needs to improve is governance. Technology infrastructures are managed in a fragmented way by different national and regional actors, and the European Commission’s Expert Group on Technology Infrastructures has called for an EU-level mechanism for strategic coordination. An ecosystem-level of coordination and holistic priority setting is crucial to develop.
Açores 2030 to launch 2 new calls totaling €2.1 million
STATUS – CALLS OPEN FROM 7 SEPTEMBER TO 30 NOVEMBER 2026The Açores 2030 programme has launched two calls worth more than €2.1 million, co-financed by the ERDF – European Regional Development Fund at up to 85%, to strengthen scientific and technological capacity in the region. One supports early-stage exploratory applied R&D (€600,000), while the other provides €1.525 million for highly qualified human resources supporting regional entities participating in Portugal’s National Roadmap of Strategic Research Infrastructures (RNIIE). Open until 30 November 2026, the calls highlight how regional programmes are linking research capacity, infrastructure and applied R&I – and raise a broader question for INESC: how can national research organisations connect their capabilities with regional ecosystems and contribute to the next stages of the European R&I pipeline?
ANI promotes Portuguese-French collaboration anticipating Cluster 6 calls
ANI – Agência Nacional de Inovação is organising an online Portugal-France matchmaking session on 9 October, together with French National Contact Points (NCPs) for Horizon Europe’s Cluster 6, to support preparation for the 2027 calls in water and water resources, food systems and soil health. The session will bring together Portuguese and French organisations to identify partners, develop international consortia and present project ideas. For INESC Institutes, the initiative provides an opportunity to engage early with potential French partners and shape collaborations around upcoming Cluster 6 priorities, reinforcing the value of positioning before calls open rather than only at proposal stage.
September developments across the INESC network show research capability translating into strategic technologies, industrial transformation, integrated platforms, policy evidence and practical skills.
The European Processor Initiative has completed Rhea1, a fully operational 80-core processor developed for Europe’s high-performance computing ecosystem and intended for JUPITER, Europe’s first exascale supercomputer.
The Portuguese contribution was led by researchers from INESC-ID. Their work included developing equipment to monitor system operation and assess performance and reliability. The work will continue through initiatives including DARE, aimed at expanding the range of European-made HPC equipment.
For INESC, the achievement provides a tangible example of contribution to Europe’s digital and technological sovereignty, while reinforcing expertise that can feed future European work in processors, high-performance computing and advanced computing.
INESC TEC is leading tRail5.0, a new three-year European project launched in September to examine how resilient, sustainable and human-centered Industry 5.0 principles can support the digital transformation of European rail freight.
Working with Zaragoza Logistics Center and Université Gustave Eiffel, the project uses the Atlantic Corridor as its case study and will develop recommendations for the future European rail ecosystem. The project began on 1 September 2026 and runs until February 2029.
For INESC, it is a useful example of expertise in digitalisation, industrial systems and logistics being applied at the scale of a strategic European transport corridor.
At INESC MN, master’s student Elisa Simioni received a Best Poster Award at Eurosensors 2026 for work on a bronchus-on-a-chip platform with integrated sensing.
The research focuses on integrated sensing for real-time monitoring of cell cultures, contributing to more advanced and physiologically relevant in-vitro models.
Beyond the award, the work demonstrates a valuable intersection of capabilities: microengineering, sensing and biological models brought together in a single experimental platform.
INOV launched iNsense in September, an educational Internet of Things kit designed to allow students to explore the complete chain of a connected system, from sensing and data collection to processing, visualisation and automated action.
The platform integrates sensors, actuators, microcontrollers, and communications technologies, including LoRa. Developed as an integrated solution by INOV, it has already been installed in two Portuguese schools, with agriculture providing an immediate application context.
The initiative shows how systems-integration expertise can be converted into a reusable asset for digital skills and vocational training.
The European Commission recognises INESC TEC expertise in strategic digital technologies
Fernando Cassola and Ricardo Bessa of INESC TEC have been formally recognised by the European Commission as experts who contributed to two strategic studies on Europe’s future digital capacities and technologies.
Their input, provided through interviews, workshops and surveys, fed recommendations intended to help shape future European priorities for research, innovation and strategic digital capabilities. The recognition highlights INESC TEC’s expertise in areas including technological sovereignty, interoperability, digital transformation and strategic digital technologies.
For INESC, the value lies not only in the recognition itself, but in the Institute’s direct contribution to European policy thinking. Bessa is also leading the new OpenAIFlex project, launched in September, adding a further research strand at the intersection of AI, flexibility and power systems.
Technical studies carried out by INESC-ID, INESC TEC and IN+ provided scientific input to the Action Plan underpinning Portugal’s proposed National Energy Storage Strategy.
The work addresses how electricity storage can be integrated into the national electricity system and contributes technical evidence around the expansion of storage capacity, renewable-energy integration, electrification and system operation.
The example demonstrates another route for INESC knowledge to generate impact: research expertise feeding directly into the evidence base used for public-policy and energy-system planning.
NETWORK HIGHLIGHT
Porto becomes a European meeting point for AI, data and robotics
On 13-14 October, Porto will host ADRF26, the AI, Data and Robotics Forum, with INESC TEC serving as scientific organiser.
More than 500 researchers, innovators, industry representatives and policymakers are expected at the Alfândega do Porto Congress Centre. ADRF26 is organised by INESC TEC and ADRA (the private side of the European Partnership on AI, Data and Robotics) with the involvement of the European Commission.
Under the theme “Apply AI where it matters”, discussions will address European strategic autonomy and technological leadership, real-world AI deployment and sectoral impact, European infrastructures, regulation and trustworthy AI.
For the wider INESC network, ADRF26 is more than a conference hosted in Portugal. It creates an opportunity to connect capabilities across AI, data, robotics, energy, industry, mobility, communications, health and other application areas with a European community shaping the deployment of these technologies.
The INESC Brussels HUB will lead TI-EDGE – Management Talent & Service Excellence for Technology Infrastructures, recently selected under Horizon Europe and now in grant preparation.
The project brings together 11 partners from eight Member States and addresses a practical gap in Europe’s Technology Infrastructure ecosystem: how to make high-quality infrastructures easier for companies to find, access and use by strengthening the management capabilities behind them.
TI-EDGE will develop a European competence framework, training pathways, a Community of Practice and a discovery portal for Technology Infrastructure services. The project is expected to start on 1 January 2027, with the kick-off meeting planned in Porto.
The FUND-RI consortium held its second in-person meeting in Porto on 23–25 August, hosted at INESC TEC headquarters. The programme combined consortium working sessions with a methodology workshop on “RI Funding Streams: needs, gaps and opportunities across Europe”.
The workshop brought consortium members and invited guests together to look at the diversity of research infrastructure funding models across Europe, identify current gaps and challenges, and discuss opportunities to strengthen funding models and improve synergies between funding streams.
For the INESC Brussels HUB, which leads FUND-RI, the meeting was an important step in advancing the project methodology while bringing the consortium together around the next phase of the work.
From 23 October to 10 November, AI-SECRETT will run a series of seven online webinars as part of European AI Innovation Month 2026.
The series will explore how AI is reshaping skills across sectors including manufacturing, agri-food, energy and environment, housing, services, cultural and creative industries, and transport and mobility.
The sessions run online from 17:00 to 18:00 CEST and provide a useful window into how AI skills needs are evolving across different parts of the European economy.
The INESC Brussels HUB has continued to use its Brussels office as a space for exchange with European networks and liaison organisations.
Recent visitors have included colleagues from the Slovak Liaison Office for Research and Development in Brussels (SLORD), MANUFUTURE and Stavanger Region. These meetings have provided opportunities to exchange information on current European R&I developments, identify areas of common interest and strengthen working relationships across the Brussels research and innovation community.
Beyond individual meetings, the office is increasingly serving as a practical space for building connections around the five INESC institutes and their European priorities.
Events
10-12 October
IEEE-EMBS International Conference on Body Sensor Networks
This year’s BSN focuses on moving intelligent sensing technologies from research prototypes into scalable, reliable and clinically meaningful applications.
Registration deadline: 1 October
13-14 October
AI, Data and Robotics Forum – #ADRF26
More than 500 participants from research, industry and policymaking are expected in Porto, with INESC TEC as scientific organiser.
Registration deadline: 12 October
14-15 October
Horizon Europe Cluster 4 Info Days
Online. Cluster 4 covers fields particularly relevant across INESC, including artificial intelligence and robotics, advanced computing and Big Data, next-generation internet, industrial technologies and space.
10-11 November
European Research & Innovation Days 2026
Brussels & online. The European Commission’s flagship R&I event brings together policymakers, researchers, innovators and industry to discuss Europe’s research and innovation priorities.
Registration required for in-person attendance only
17 November
Brussels & online. The programme covers AI applications in energy, cybersecurity, robotics, health, environment and climate, agrifood, mobility, electronic communications, manufacturing and defence, alongside sessions on the AI Act, AI safety and workforce implications.
On-site registration deadline: 9 October
The ESFRI Roadmap is Europe’s long-term reference for identifying and developing Research Infrastructures of pan-European importance. Developed by the European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures (ESFRI), it identifies major infrastructure projects and monitors their development, helping guide national and European investment in the facilities, technologies and services needed for frontier research. First published in 2006, the ESFRI Roadmap is updated periodically to reflect emerging scientific priorities and infrastructure needs. The next edition, the ESFRI Roadmap 2026, is scheduled for December 2026 and will be presented in ICRI – International Conference on Research Infrastructure 2026.
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