Almost three years ago, Australian officials quietly told the European Commission that they were pulling out of talks to join Horizon Europe, the European Union’s €95.5 billion (£83 billion) research programme.

No public announcement was made. No reason was given. Only months later did media reports reveal the country’s decision to step back from what is technically known as association to Horizon Europe, much to the frustration of Australia’s academic community, which already had many collaborations with European labs.

Then the world changed. The Trump administration began cutting US research funding, including that for international partnerships, as part of a pattern of withdrawal from existing global frameworks. And safety in numbers suddenly seemed a lot more attractive for mid-ranking powers like Australia.

The apparent end of the post-war global order has also concentrated minds within Europe, heightening the value of pooling research and innovation efforts in an attempt to compete with the two modern “great powers”, the US and China. Last month, for instance, Jan Palmowski, secretary general of the Guild of European Research-Intensive Universities, wrote in Times Higher Education that the association mechanism of the next Horizon Europe programme, which is currently being negotiated ahead of its launch in 2028, “could put the EU at the heart of a global R&I ‘coalition that works’”, echoing Canadian prime minister Mark Carney’s call for such groupings at the World Economic Forum in Davos.

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“This would make Horizon Europe the starting point for wider collaboration with third countries worldwide. And this, in turn, could be a basis of agreeing to shared global research priorities, common protocols around IP rules, interoperability and research security in particularly sensitive research areas,” Palmowski wrote.

The EU is already well on the way to establishing a global “coalition that works” in the research arena. In earlier iterations of its research “framework programmes”, association was only available to “third countries” – non-EU members – in Europe’s near neighbourhood, such as Israel, Norway and Switzerland. But the rules of the current, ninth programme, which began in 2021, were changed to open the scheme up to global association to further empower European research and innovation.

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Even before Trump’s re-election in October 2024, Canada, New Zealand and South Korea, among others, had signed up to various levels of association with Horizon Europe, drawn by the international breadth and stability of the seven-year framework. And then, in late 2025, Australia reversed course, reopening talks with Brussels.

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But assumptions that research powers from around the world will continue to join hands with Europe��for research may be premature.

The changed geopolitical climate has prompted the European Commission to propose a nearly doubled budget for the next Horizon Europe programme, often referred to as FP10, of €175 billion a year. More controversially, however, it proposes that spending be more closely aligned with European industrial and security priorities, reflecting politicians’ and officials’ conviction that the continent needs to be more militarily self-reliant and industrially competitive on the world stage.

That shift is already giving some potential partners pause. A 2025 University of St Andrews found that although third countries value Horizon Europe’s scale and prestige, many already feel as if their participation is an afterthought in its architecture and worry that a more inward-looking FP10 could make that worse. Co-author Gosia Mitka, vice-dean for engagement, partnerships and social responsibility at the university’s business school, said what mattered most to partners was knowing where they stood. “Where the balance between openness and protection is unclear, willingness to associate becomes more fragile, particularly for newer partners considering a first multi-year financial commitment,” she told THE.��

Mitka stressed that third countries were drawn to the framework’s “festival of opportunities” but a focus on security, defence and competitiveness risks transforming the programme from a “global scientific lighthouse” into what one participant described as a “very closed club”.

Palmowski said there is an “in-principle openness” towards association in the EU’s proposals for its next funding period, which runs until 2034 – not only to Horizon Europe but also to other programmes such as the Erasmus+ mobility scheme, which he described as a big opportunity for third countries. But in his article, he stressed that widening and deepening collaboration with like-minded countries “would require the EU to become much more agile in how it agrees association for FP10, especially with countries that have already associated to the current Horizon Europe programme. And it would require the EU to take on board the ideas and experiences of its global partners where appropriate.”

But third countries have no formal say in how framework programmes are formulated, and it is not obvious that their views are being sought or taken on board as the commission’s initial FP10 proposal is scrutinised by the European Parliament and Council, ahead of the publication of a final, detailed version of the regulations, expected by late 2027.

“Third countries are worried about how FP10 is going to look,” said Kurt Deketelaere, secretary general of the League of European Research Universities (Leru). “We need to clarify urgently what the possibilities for association will be, and under what conditions.”

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One concern is how association to the framework will work in relation to the new €68 billion European Competitiveness Fund (ECF): the to boost European performance in “technologies and strategic sectors critical to the EU competitiveness”, as the commission puts it. According to , the ECF will be “tightly connected” to FP10’s second pillar, which is focused on collaborative research to benefit “competitiveness and society”. And the pillar’s four “competitive” research themes reflect the ECF’s priorities: clean energy, health, digital technology and resilience and security.

That link has drawn concern among groups representing research-intensive universities. In February, several��warned in a that without proper legal safeguards, FP10 research could end up serving the ECF’s short-term industrial goals rather than the pursuit of scientific excellence. And that is unlikely to be attractive to third countries, some worry.

Conversely, if already associated countries want to join ECF projects, will they need to negotiate a separate association agreement and financial contribution, on top of what they already pay into Horizon Europe, Deketelaere asked. And would failure to do so exclude third countries from parts of Horizon Europe’s second pillar?

There are also questions around dual-use technologies – research that can be applied for both civilian and military purposes. Historically, EU research funding has been limited to civilian applications but, in light of the perceived threat to EU security from Russia, the proposed FP10 regulation allows support for dual-use research such as drones or cybersecurity.

The commission also reserves the right to restrict access to parts of the programme it deems sensitive. This could mean excluding third countries from certain research calls and limiting access to dual-use projects. And whatever the virtue of the rationale for such exclusions, there could be a lot of devil in the detail of it.

“If you have a Swiss, an Austrian and an Italian university submit a bid and somebody [in the commission] says there are dual-use implications – so then the Swiss collaborator is no longer able to participate – what are the implications for the other two partners?” Palmowski asked. Switzerland, a non-EU country, is associated to FP9 – although it has been in and out of EU framework programmes in recent years��as a result of��various political disputes with the EU, and its forthcoming referendum on capping its population represents another potential flashpoint.

Third countries themselves measure their words carefully on the attractiveness of FP10. Iain Cossar, general manager for science, innovation and international policy at New Zealand’s Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment, said there was a “strong appetite” in New Zealand to participate in some of the more restrictive calls around space and cybersecurity. The country, which associated to FP9 in 2023, is keen to join FP10 “right upfront, to be able to get in early”, he added.

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However, he agreed that it will be important to understand the connection between FP10 and the ECF: “From our perspective from the outside, a delineation [between the two] might be best because it makes it clearer and simpler for us about what we’re actually associating to and what the rules and governance arrangements are.”

In a written statement, the commission told THE that international cooperation was “in the DNA of great research and innovation” and that FP10 would stay open to “like-minded global partners”. But it also warned that Europe “cannot afford to be naive. Where necessary, specific measures may be taken to protect EU competitiveness and security interests, [including undertaking] risk assessments and security reviews, [restricting] participation and place of performance [of research, and] limiting access to results and their [technological] transfer.”

Such restrictions could also apply to the UK, of course. A full member of previous framework programmes, the country formally associated to Horizon Europe only in 2024, after a long post-Brexit standoff��because of European concerns about British backsliding over post-Brexit agreements on Northern Ireland and UK concerns about the cost of association. During that gap, research collaborations were built without UK partners, and Douglas Dowell, policy manager at the Russell Group, said UK universities were still working hard to recover the lost ground, particularly in the collaborative Pillar II projects.

Many UK universities are now running dedicated Horizon support programmes and offering targeted help for first-time applicants. But another hiatus in participation is a real risk if the UK has to negotiate FP10 association from scratch again. “We’re keen to see whatever can be done to smooth that process,” Dowell said.��

Deketelaere echoed this view. “We are all asking for a fast-track procedure for the UK and Switzerland to join FP10 from day one,” he said. Both countries, he argues, are central to the framework – both are associated to all parts of Horizon Europe and are highly successful in the excellence-driven first pillar – so prolonged re-entry negotiations would be damaging for everyone. He is equally clear on the need for British and Swiss access to the ECF: “We want no limitations on their participation in both programmes because of this notion of European strategic autonomy.”

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Further-flung countries tend to associate less comprehensively to Horizon Europe. Earlier this year, for instance, became the latest non-European country to join the current framework but, like Canada, New Zealand and South Korea, it associated only to pillar II (although Egypt, which also associated recently, has access to the entire programme).

This focus on more applied research only makes the issues around the European competitiveness focus all the more acute for such countries. Futao Huang, a professor at the Research Institute for Higher Education at Hiroshima University, said a more strategically focused FP10 could create “new opportunities” for research-intensive Japanese universities – which are “increasingly aligned with [Japanese] national priorities around innovation, industrial competitiveness and technological leadership” – in areas that the EU is also prioritising, such as advanced materials, AI, energy and space.

“On the other hand, if competitiveness becomes too closely tied to geopolitical or industrial policy agendas, some Japanese institutions may perceive participation as more selective or constrained, particularly if access to certain research domains becomes restricted,” Huang said.

Specific doubts include whether non-EU partners can participate on genuinely equal terms, the administrative burden of new research security requirements, and the risk that collaboration could end up serving European strategic interests more than Japanese ones, Huang said. “Japanese universities traditionally value open science and academic exchange, so any perceived shift toward exclusivity could affect participation decisions,” he warned.

Cecilia Hewlett, pro vice-chancellor (Europe) at Monash University, noted that more than 40 per cent of her institution’s international co-publications are already with European partners. And she said FP10’s competitiveness agenda could work in Australia’s favour as climate change, health and critical minerals are just as important to her country as they are to Europe. “The benefits of being part of that global conversation, with trusted partners who share the same values, are real on both sides,” she said.

That value was underlined when the US government paused, cut or terminated research funding to various Australian universities last year as the Trump administration “DEI, woke gender ideology and the green new deal”. And Hewlett said this uncertainty comes up regularly in conversations across her institution, particularly in faculties that have historically depended on large US-funded projects. “The diversification of research alliances is a good strategy because it mitigates the risk of having all your eggs in one basket,” she said.

A source close to the Australian push to join Horizon Europe confirmed to THE that concerns around US funding had prompted the government to restart the conversation with Brussels. And with Japan, South Korea and New Zealand all associated, and Singapore also recently with Europe, remaining aloof risks isolating Australia not just from Europe but from its own regional partners, they pointed out.��

For his part, New Zealand’s chief science adviser, John Roche, said the changing geopolitical environment had not necessarily increased his country’s desire to be part of Horizon Europe so much as made staying outside it unthinkable. “Innovation doesn’t thrive in isolation,” he said. “As a small economy on the far reaches of the world that has been heavily tied to Europe for a long time as an economic powerhouse, we’re just keen to remain tied.”

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One potential tension about association within Europe is a fear that the wider and deeper involvement of strong research nations from outside the EU will reduce the opportunities for weaker research nations within the EU to participate in FP10 programmes. Emanuel Kulczycki, head of the Research System and Science Dynamics Department at the German Centre for Higher Education Research and Science Studies in Berlin, warned that programmes focused on industrial competitiveness favour institutions already embedded in strong networks. “Competitiveness-driven funding could reinforce existing inequalities rather than reduce them,” he said.

But Deketelaere stressed that the challenges the world faces are too large for any bloc to tackle alone. “Europe will have to continue to collaborate with other parts of the world, just like other parts of the world will need to collaborate with the EU,” he said. And he called on the commission to resist pressure from some European policymakers to look “much more inwards”.

The Russell Group’s Dowell agreed. “As the environment becomes more complicated, like-minded partners working together on areas of concern becomes even more important and that very much includes research,” he said. And his view that strategic focus and global openness are not fundamentally in conflict is widely shared among those THE spoke to. The concerns about FP10 are specific and practical: the need for clarity on the ECF and dual-use technology, for instance, as well as a fast-track re-association process.

As Palmowski put it: “There is still every opportunity to develop a mechanism that really takes seriously the international dimension of FP10. But we should really try and raise our voices as loudly as possible to make sure that it does happen.”

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