The new FP10, a Moonshots and Missions: Is Europe Dreaming Big Enough?

The EU’s next research and innovation programme (FP10, 2028–2034) is being shaped in a moment of urgency. Brussels has put competitiveness back at the centre of economic strategy (via the Competitiveness Compass, January 2025), explicitly tying R&I to productivity, security and decarbonisation. The Commission’s official signal on 16 July 2025—€175 billion for FP10—confirms the scale of the bet: roughly “doubling” the current framework to make Europe faster, simpler, and more impactful in R&I. But is it enough to compete in a globalise world?

If we take the leaked FP10 as the benchmark, Europe is certainly thinking big — the moonshot list is ambitious, the integration with the European Competitiveness Fund is a structural leap forward, and the €175 billion proposal is unprecedented for an EU R&I framework.

But if the question is whether this is enough to compete head-to-head with the US, China, India, Japan or Korea, the honest answer is: probably not yet. The global R&D race is not just about strategic focus, it’s about scale and sustained intensity.

Behind that public headline lies a design choice that’s still controversial: how tightly to wire FP10 to the European Competitiveness Fund. Early leaks floated folding multiple EU programmes into a single mega‑fund. The latest direction keeps FP10 stand‑alone but operationally integrated with the ECF through a steering mechanism and a Competitiveness Coordination Tool (CCT)—a compromise that aims to preserve scientific integrity while hard‑wiring industrial deployment.

1) Europe’s big bets

The leaked FP10 text is explicit about “moonshots”—grand challenges that fuse excellence science with scale‑up and deployment. It sketches a shortlist ranging from quantum and fusion to next‑gen AI, regenerative medicine, clean aviation and particle physics. In the Commission’s own words, FP10 could finance R&I aspects of “‘moonshots’ projects… with a coherent sequence between research, demonstration, development and deployment”—with CCT alignment across EU and national money.

Quantum: make Europe “the first continent with quantum computing fully integrated into daily life”—applied from personalised medicine to climate modelling.
Next‑gen AI: “modelled on the laws of nature”, moving beyond today’s language‑centred paradigms to open new scientific and economic frontiers.
Fusion: target the “first commercial nuclear fusion power plant” to power homes and heavy industry.
Regenerative medicine: “innovative therapies… [with] potential to address diseases that have currently no cure.”
Clean aviation & FCC: pair Horizon‑funded science with ECF‑backed industrial deployment; Horizon could cover up to 20% of major research infrastructure build costs. r

Read plainly, FP10’s moonshots are not slogans; they’re a blueprint to turn strategic technologies into European value chains—with the ECF providing the industrial muscle.

2) The ecosystem approach (Horizon + ECF)

The leaked regulation makes the operating model clear: “R&I investment will be complementary and tightly connected with the European Competitiveness Fund… [with] the Competitiveness Coordination Tool (CCT) [to] align industrial and research policies and investments” around common European priorities.

That architecture runs through the programme:

Collaborative research will be steered via the ECF regulation, with the CCT knitting together agendas and funding streams across the value chain—from lower to higher TRLs.
EIC will adopt more “ARPA” elements and a dedicated “DARPA” approach for dual‑use/defence, and maintain a Scaleup Europe Fund track to finance growth in capital‑intensive sectors (quantum, clean‑tech, biotech).
Innovation ecosystems support is explicit: FP10 will “create competitive, robust and connected innovation ecosystems,” with synergies to national and regional programmes.

This is exactly what recent policy signals promised: a tighter industrial‑R&I handshake framed by the Competitiveness Compass and Draghi/Letta/Heitor reports—now expressed as an operational rulebook shared between FP10 and the ECF.

3) Why it matters for regions

For regions, the shift is twofold. First, the money: the proposed €175 billion for FP10 points to a larger, more predictable pipeline for labs, SMEs and scaleups—if regional strategies line up with EU moonshots and missions. Second, the machinery: with CCT steering, ECF windows and joint programming, regions that can plug into EU value chains will see faster routes from pilots to factories, and from pilots to procurement.

The leaked text also embeds a fairness lens. FP10 vows to “promote a broad geographical coverage in excellent collaborative projects” and backs it with eligibility rules and dedicated action under Widening and Transition. In short: the centre of gravity is pan‑European, not just “golden triangle.”

Practically, that means regional investment plans should now be written to:

map local capacities to specific moonshots (e.g., composites for clean aviation, cryo‑electronics for quantum);
organise clusters and partnerships that match ECF windows (clean transition, digitalisation, health/biotech, defence/space); and
prepare innovation‑friendly procurement and permitting, because deployment is where ECF will press hardest. eera-set.eu

4) Mind the gap

The Commission isn’t naïve about divergence. The leak is candid: “assist widening and transition countries to increase their participation”, but from 2030 access to capacity‑building tightens to those raising public R&D spend year‑on‑year. That’s a carrot—and a stick—to avoid permanent two‑speed innovation.

Add to this the governance choice. Early ECF leaks imagined a single mega‑fund; the July proposal preserves FP10’s identity but binds it to the ECF’s industrial steering. Regions that don’t connect to cross‑border value chains and mission‑driven consortia risk being out‑paced as deployment money flows to places ready to execute.

What’s new since the last draft?

Budget signal: Commission proposes €175 billion for FP10 (16 July 2025) and positions it as “twice bigger, simpler, faster.” Expect negotiations, but the political intent is unambiguous.
ECF shape: Leaks describe five ECF pillars (Digitalisation; Resilience/Defence/Space; Clean Transition; Health/Biotech; Blue‑sky Research & Careers) and the use of a single rulebook with a CCT. FP10’s leak mirrors that linkage.
Policy spine: The Competitiveness Compass and the Draghi report remain the intellectual scaffolding—less red tape, more capital, and a harder pivot to deployment.