As the European Youth Think Tank (EYTT), a non-profit organization that connects young researchers from across Europe and promotes interdisciplinary research and international scientific collaboration, we witness every day the crucial role that research funding plays in shaping Europe's future.
We argue that the debate on research funding should not be limited to the amount of resources available. It should also address how these resources are distributed and what effects they produce within the academic system.
Research as a Driver of Economic Development
There is a broad consensus that research is one of the primary drivers of long-term economic growth. Technological innovation, productivity gains, scientific progress, and international competitiveness all depend heavily on a country's ability to invest in the production of new knowledge. However, research ideas should not be evaluated as if they were a business plans. Some of the most important discoveries sometimes cannot be fully explained, quantified, or justified in advance. Scientific funding therefore make room for creativity and for ambitious research whose value may not be apparent immediately. In some cases, society must be willing to invest in people and ideas whose value may only become visible in the future.
For this reason, the European Union has developed some of the world's most prestigious and competitive research funding programs. Horizon Europe is currently the EU's flagship framework programme for research and innovation, while instruments such as the European Research Council (ERC) and the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) support thousands of researchers and their projects across Europe, strengthening scientific cooperation and facilitating the circulation of knowledge across countries.
These programs have strengthened the quality of European research, fostered international mobility, and supported groundbreaking scientific projects. For many early-career researchers, they provide not only a unique opportunity for professional growth but also access to more stable and well remunerated research positions.
From this perspective, their contribution undeniably deserves more recognition than it is given.
The Limits of an Exclusively Competitive System
Alongside their many strengths, however, there are also challenges that are rarely discussed.
The first concerns the highly competitive nature of these funding schemes. Every successful ERC or MSCA proposal is succeeded by numerous unsuccessful applications, many of which are scientifically excellent and deserving of support.
Additionally, preparing a competitive ERC or MSCA proposal often requires months of work. Researchers invest significant time in developing scientific ideas, building international collaborations, preparing administrative documentation, and designing detailed work plans. A substantial part of this investment is inevitably lost when a proposal is not funded, as well as the potential knowledge that these projects could have generated.
The result is that researchers and academics increasingly devote time to grant writing, project management, and administrative procedures rather than to research itself. In some cases, the system risks transforming scientists into professional grant writers rather than producers of new knowledge.
The Risk of Following Research Trends
There is also a more subtle but equally important issue: intellectual independence.
Some of the most transformative scientific discoveries emerged from long-term, independent, and sometimes unconventional lines of inquiry. Breakthrough ideas are often developed by researchers willing to pursue questions that initially appear uncertain, unpopular, or difficult to justify within existing funding priorities.
A system heavily dependent on competitive funding may unintentionally encourage researchers to align their work with topics that are currently fashionable or considered fundable rather than with the questions they genuinely believe are most important. Competition for resources is particularly intense: Horizon Europe has an average proposal success rate of 16.4%, while around 70% of proposals assessed as high quality cannot be funded because of budget constraints.
The war in Ukraine offers a concrete example of how geopolitical developments can shape European research funding priorities. In its January 2024 White Paper on dual-use technologies, the European Commission explicitly identified Russia’s aggression as a reason to strengthen support for research into technologies with both civilian and military applications. In April 2025, it also announced €910 million for projects selected under the 2024 European Defence Fund calls, including over €360 million for 39 research projects. These initiatives address concrete security needs, but they also illustrate how political priorities help determine which scientific activities receive support. This can create incentives for researchers to align their proposals with strategic objectives that attract funding. Alongside these investments, it therefore remains essential to maintain adequate support for independent research, including work without immediate applications or a direct connection to current emergencies.
This does not mean that European funding programs directly restrict scientific freedom. Rather, any funding system shapes the choices of those who depend on it: researchers tend to propose the projects most likely to be funded, such as shorter, deliverable-oriented work on current priorities, even when a riskier, longer-term question might matter more to them.
The Emergence of “First-Class” and “Second-Class” Researchers
Competition and merit should undoubtedly remain central components of research funding. However, competitive funding systems can also reinforce disparities among researchers.
A second issue concerns the differences that may emerge between researchers who receive prestigious European grants and those who rely primarily on national funding schemes, particularly in countries with limited research budgets. Researchers conducting comparable work may have access to substantially different resources and career opportunities.
These advantages can grow over time. As Bol et al., 2018 observed, “early funding success introduces a growing rift”. Their findings suggest that securing an initial grant can improve a researcher’s chances of obtaining subsequent funding, reinforcing disparities over time. These dynamics risk creating an implicit distinction between “first-class” and “second-class" researchers, potentially weakening cohesion within scientific communities.
Funding inequalities can have consequences that extend beyond immediate financial differences. Researchers with access to larger or more prestigious grants may be better positioned to build teams, develop international networks, and pursue more ambitious research projects. For example, Nektarios Tavernarakis, a researcher at the Foundation for research and Technology-Hellas (FORTH) in Greece, reported that successive ERC grants enabled his team to expand its research infrastructure to a level comparable to that of laboratories in Germany and the United States. His experience illustrates how access to substantial funding cam strengthen a research group’s capacity to compete internationally.
The Global Competition for Talent
Research funding is closely linked to the broader competition between Europe, the United States, and China.
Attracting talented researchers is one of the most effective strategies available to any country. It allows nations to benefit from expertise developed elsewhere, acquire advanced knowledge, and strengthen their innovative capacity.
Yet the challenge is not only to attract talent but also to retain it. According to the European Commission, two years after completing their MSCA fellowship, 69% of former fellows were still living or working in the EU-27, while 13% were based in non-affiliated third countries.
International mobility is an extraordinary scientific asset when it is freely chosen. It becomes problematic when researchers feel compelled to relocate simply to access decent working conditions, credible career prospects, or adequate research funding. Differences in these conditions can shape where researchers are able to build sustainable careers, sometimes making mobility less a matter of scientific choice than of professional necessity. These dynamics can gradually concentrate talent in countries and institutions that offer more stable and attractive research environments. A healthy research system should allow researchers to move freely between countries and institutions without turning mobility into an obligation. Stronger international collaborations can connect researchers across borders, allow knowledge and skills to circulate between institutions, and make it possible to develop more ambitious projects without requiring permanent relocation.
Towards a Balance Between Excellence and Stability
For these reasons, we believe that competitive European funding schemes form part of a broader research strategy, as they cannot be the only answer to the needs of the research system.
Alongside competitive excellence, Europe also needs stronger structural investment in national research systems, including sustained public funding for research institutions and infrastructure, more stable career pathways, and adequate baseline funding for universities and research centers, so that adequate research conditions and resources are available beyond highly competitive funding schemes.
Europe has built some of the world's most successful funding programs. The challenge for the coming years is to ensure that these instruments do not remain opportunities for only a small number of winners, but become part of a broader ecosystem capable of offering opportunities, stability, and long-term prospects to the entire European research community, and ultimately society.
Luigi Capoani is an economist, researcher, and lecturer in International Economics at Ca' Foscari University of Venice. He earned his PhD in Economics from the University of Salerno through an international joint-supervision program with the University of Birmingham. He is the founder and president of the European Youth Think Tank (EYTT), a non-profit organization and independent platform that connects young researchers from across Europe and promotes interdisciplinary projects in research, innovation, and international scientific collaboration.
