Unlocking the chemical industry’s innovation potential in Europe: A call for smarter R&I funding
There is no lack of innovative ideas in the EU, but when it comes to scale-up, deployment, and commercialisation, the Future of European Competitiveness report by Draghi notes that it is seriously challenged by the fragmented and inefficient public Research & Innovation (R&I) support. This, combined with other regions offering attractive and predictable rules, results in EU companies expanding and seeking finance elsewhere.
To reverse this trend and secure Europe’s global competitiveness, the EU must simplify and integrate its fragmented R&I funding landscape. This is particularly urgent for the chemical industry, which requires significant funding and investment to scale up technologies that enable climate neutrality, circularity, digitalisation, and the transition to safe and sustainable chemicals. Without targeted financial support, Europe risks lagging behind in industrial transformation.
The recently published Clean Industrial Deal (CID) outlines a “transformational business plan” to drive industrial decarbonisation, economic resilience, and global competitiveness. However, for these ambitions to materialise, Europe’s funding mechanisms must evolve in tandem—providing industry with the clarity, flexibility, and financial backing necessary to scale up innovation within the EU.
Cefic’s position paper, “Improving the EU R&I Funding Landscape: Addressing Current Challenges,” builds on Point 2 of the Antwerp Declaration, which calls for a simplified, accelerated and integrated R&I funding instruments, with a particular focus to de-risk and scale up projects to transition into commercialisation.
It lays out concrete actions on what is needed to simplify and streamline the current funding landscape:
- Improve predictability and de-risk investment for high technology readiness level (TRL) projects through targeted tools, a supportive and predictable policy framework, and optimised funding mechanisms that facilitate scaling up industrial innovations.
- Integrate and simplify EU R&I financial instruments by streamlining major funding programmes, introducing flexibility in project timelines, and prioritising funding calls based on challenges rather than pre-defined solutions.
- Establish a dedicated R&I fund for strategic sectors in the next Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF 2027-2034) to support manufacturing of critical technologies and products identified in the Strategic Agenda 2024-2029, ensuring the chemical industry is adequately represented.
- Develop a ‘one-stop-shop’ for the chemical industry through a centralised funding coordination platform (inspired by Strategic Technologies for Europe Platform (STEP)) to simplify applications across EU and regional programmes, providing companies with a clear pathway from early-stage research to commercialisation.
- Establish complementary incentives between regional and European funding, including for key public and private investor actors. European funding can “top-up” excellent projects already supported by more constrained regional funding (state-aid).
- Accelerate co-financing and demand-side incentives by integrating European and regional funding schemes to provide a seamless financing pathway from proof of concept to market entry.
- Reduce administrative burdens and simplify grant applications by eliminating non-core technical requirements and standardising documentation, ensuring a more efficient process.
A simplified, de-risked, and impact-driven approach to EU funding is key to foster industrial transformation, accelerate innovation ideas to reach commercialisation, and secure long-term competitiveness.