On Tuesday, 4 June, The Guild, the platform of 22 research-intensive universities to which UPF belongs, launched the #ResearchMatters campaign together with other stakeholders and R&D organizations. To kick off the campaign, the entities behind the initiative have published an open letter in which they call to strengthen research and innovation in the EU addressing European institutions, the governments of the member states, national and regional policymakers, the entire research and innovation community, the media and society in general.

In the letter, they manifest that, in a world of major environmental, social and geopolitical crises, Europe must invest in research and innovation to project itself into the future and ensure Europe’s competitiveness, well-being and peace. Urgent solutions are also advocated to address complex challenges linked to climate change, AI, cybersecurity, environmental and energy crises, threats to democracy and security, pandemics, and so on.

The signatories are of the opinion that the EU and the different member states must develop and promote research and innovation of excellence with a long-term, multidisciplinary and intersectoral perspective. In this regard, they recall that, in recent years, North America and Asia have vastly increased their investments in this area, leaving Europe behind.

The #ResearchMatters campaign urges member state finance ministers, the European Council, the Commission and the European Parliament to act boldly to boost funding for research and innovation in the EU, so that at least 3% of GDP is spent on it both at EU and at national level. It is also asks to double the budget of the next EU research and innovation programme (FP10) to reach 200,000 million euros and preserve and protect these resources to implement it.

In short, it is committed to measures that provide Europe with strategies to face current and future geopolitical and social challenges, based on increased investments in knowledge creation, research and innovation.

The Guild calls for the EU’s new R&D framework programme to increase funding and ensure research independence 

The launch of the #ResearchMatters campaign comes two weeks after The Guild disclosed its position on the EU’s future R&D framework programme (FP10), which is about to be negotiated at the EU institutions. For The Guild, the process of preparing this programme is “a unique opportunity to reassert the crucial importance of further investing in research and innovation”. The Guild believes that the new programme will be fundamental to boost Europe’s competitiveness and scientific leadership, and also to strengthen the resilience, social cohesion and well-being of the population of EU countries, in the face of the global challenges posed by the world today.

It is also committed to international cooperation in R&D matters, and to forging synergies between the future FP10 and other EU programmes (European Regional Development Fund, Erasmus+, EU4Health, etc.). Likewise, The Guild stresses the importance of preserving the “independence” of research and innovation activities: “We are concerned that this new political agenda may consider research and innovation as being mere instruments to achieve other goals”. 

In addition to ensuring an ambitious and stable budget for this purpose, along the same lines as the #ResearchMatters campaign, The Guild believes that the future FP10 plan should be based on these other principles:

• Organize the plan around the instruments that have already proved effective in strengthening Europe's scientific excellence, such as the actions already carried out by the European Research Council (ERC) and the Marie Skłodowska-Curie programme.
• Leverage researchers’ creativity in challenge-oriented projects: funding must be guaranteed for collaborative research and basic research -and not just research aimed at the direct transfer of its results to industry or services-, in addition to making better use of the potential of the social sciences, arts and humanities to address the challenges of the contemporary world.
• Incorporate innovation into scientific excellence: researchers, including those engaged in basic research, should be given more opportunities for innovating. The European Innovation Council must be open to all ideas with future potential and provide researchers with access to resources to be able to conduct proofs of concept. 
• Safeguard academic freedom in all circumstances, except in exceptional and duly justified specific cases.
• Further facilitate international cooperation: it is crucial that the FP10 programme should remain open to the world and recognize Switzerland and the UK as preferential partners, emphasizing the responsible internationalization of research and innovation activities.
• Strengthen research excellence throughout Europe and reduce the research and innovation gap between countries: instruments to improve the R&D capabilities of developing countries in these fields must be maintained and their synergies with EU cohesion policiy prioritized.