The challenging roadmap to design the future of EU’s R&D

The ongoing debate on simplifying and standardising the rules for accessing EU research funding is in an hot phase. ERC president Maria Leptin rejected the Commission’s proposals, while the ERC Scientific Council published its new rules for the evaluation of scientific proposals. In a recent speech on the advancement of the Competitiveness Compass, Mario Draghi emphasised the need for a more proactive approach to priority programmes on critical technologies. He also drew attention to dual-use technologies, an approach combining civil and defence applications which has divided the EU Parliament