Sign up for The Insider

EARTO – Joint Declaration for a Bold FP10: Investing in Research, Development and Innovation to Boost European Productivity and Competitiveness

Policy Paper

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

In this Joint Declaration 86 European associations representing research, development and innovation (RD&I) stakeholders, coordinated by EARTO and BusinessEurope, call on EU institutions to design and fund a bold FP10 for 2028–2034. Building on the Draghi report and the Competitiveness Compass, the signatories argue that innovation-led productivity growth is Europe’s only credible way to close its competitiveness gap with the US and China and to finance the green and digital transitions. They call for a substantially increased FP10 budget, a stronger collaborative, industry-driven Pillar II, and strong, complementary FP10 and ECF programmes covering the full innovation cycle.

Key takeaways

  • FP10 needs a substantially increased budget for 2028–2034, in line with the ambition of the Draghi report and the Competitiveness Compass.
  • A stronger Pillar II should reinforce collaborative, industry-driven RD&I and public-private partnerships that reduce investment risk and bring research to market.
  • FP10 and the ECF must together cover the full RD&I continuum, from fundamental research to deployment and scale-up, with strong budgets, clear governance and synergies between them.
  • Cutting or freezing FP10's budget would be a false economy, because every euro of EU R&I funding brings in several more euros of private and national investment.

Authors & download

Authors: EARTO & Business Europe teams
Download PDF

Last reviewed / validation

17/08/2026