‘Choose Europe’: A new EU Initiative to attract global scientific talents

The initiative is based on four pillars:

• In a world where academic and scientific freedom is increasingly under threat, a key part of the ‘Choose Europe’ initiative is to safeguard and legally protect the freedom of scientific research by embedding it into the forthcomingly renewed European Research Act.
• To achieve these objectives, the Commission is putting forward a €500 million funding package for the period 2025-2027, with the aim of attracting the brightest minds to Europe. According to von der Leyen, this will provide long-term support and additional funding for researchers relocating to Europe. It will offer seven-year grants and double the top-up amount under the European Research Council (ERC) through a ‘super grant’ in 2026 and 2027. The Commission also plans to integrate a ‘Choose Europe’ pilot into the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) (Link). This initiative aims to attract early-career scientists by offering them higher allowances and longer contracts, as well as linking MSCA grants to long-term positions at universities or research institutes. In line with the Heitor report’s recommendation (Link), the Union of Skills (Link)— proposed by Vice-President Roxana Mînzatu on 5 March 2025 as the new Cabinet’s first major initiative — has already announced the ‘MSCA Choose Europe’ pilot as a concrete measure for attracting, developing and retaining talent.
• To put forward a proposal for a European Innovation Act and a Start-up and Scale-up Strategy, to remove regulatory and other barriers to innovation, and to facilitate access to venture capital for innovative European start-ups and scale-ups.
• To connect highly skilled workers and researchers more effectively with public and private research institutions, and to streamline the process for top researchers to entering and staying in Europe.

Current developments regarding the future Framework Programme for Research and Innovation

The launch of the ‘Choose Europe’ initiative comes at a time when the added value of research, innovation and education for the future of Europe has been well documented in reports assigned by the European Commission for the new legislation period (2024 – 2029), including those by Letta (Link), Draghi (Link) and Heitor (Link). However, the Commission has not consistently treated research, innovation and education as a top budgetary priority, a point of criticism raised by European stakeholder institutions including the League of European Research Universities (LERU) (Link). The proposed European Competitiveness Fund (ECF), which is expected to become a central component of the next Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) from 2028 onwards, has sparked concern within the European research and innovation community. Specifically, there are fears that future EU investments will focus primarily on the transition from applied research to the scale-up phase in support of competitiveness, in line with the new Competitiveness Compass launched by the European Commission in January 2025. In response, LERU, among others, has emphasised the importance of maintaining an independent Framework Programme (FP) for research and innovation which would support long-term research and safeguard opportunities for bottom-up, curiosity-driven and basic research. Likewise, the EU’s research ministers (Link to Warsaw Declaration) and the European Parliament (Link to the corresponding EP resolution) have advocated for a standalone Framework Programme.

After months of uncertainty and leaks about the Commission’s plan to integrate the research and innovation programme into a wider European Competitiveness Fund, the research community was relieved when, in a speech at the annual EU budget conference on 20 May, Ursula von der Leyen confirmed that the next Framework Programme Horizon Europe will remain a stand-alone programme. Nevertheless, it remains to be seen what implications the envisaged close connection to the Competitiveness Fund will have in its proposal for the next MFF.

Next steps

Following the proposal for a Council Recommendation on the European Research Area (ERA) Policy Agenda 2025-2027 by the European Commission on 28 February 2025, the new European Research Area (ERA) Policy Agenda for 2025–2027 (Link) was adopted by the Competitiveness Council on 23 May 2025. The agenda will serve as a roadmap for the next three years. It will provide a strategic framework to encourage collaboration between EU countries, enhance the efficiency of their research and innovation systems, and to address societal challenges collectively. In the second half of 2026, the European Commission is expected to publish the European Research Area Act (ERA Act), which aims to address the ongoing fragmentation of the ERA. The Act will enable the free circulation of scientific knowledge, research and innovation — referred to as the ‘fifth freedom’ in the Letta Report — thereby enshrining scientific research in European law.