Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament and the Council

Abstract

Research & Innovation is a crucial part of the knowledge-based society and one where a strong European dimension can leverage additional funds at national level, without evidence of substitution. Typically, Research & Innovation projects selected for EU funding harness a higher level of EU or international cooperation. They tend to have a scale, scope and level of sophistication that would prevent them from going ahead with national funding alone: 83% of EU Research & Innovation projects rated as "excellent" would not have gone ahead without EU support. In a world of heightened technological competition, we are moving swiftly into a low-carbon society in which digital technologies are increasingly converging with the physical and the biological world. Against this background, not investing in Research & Innovation on an EU scale would result in a decline of our global competitiveness. This would have knock-on economic, social and environmental impacts