European Excellence Initiative: how can FP10 support scientific excellence at scale?

Europe has strong instruments supporting both outstanding individual researchers and collaborative projects. What is still less developed is the space in between: long-term, cross-border research communities built around a shared scientific agenda and able to grow beyond the lifetime and scale of individual projects. This will be at the centre of the workshop “European Excellence Initiative: How FP10 can support long-term large-scale bottom-up and researcher-driven R&I collaborations to boost the EU leadership in science?”, taking place in Brussels on 22 September 2026.

The discussion starts from what could be described as a “missing middle” in the European research funding landscape. Existing EU instruments successfully support individual excellence, collaborative projects and partnerships, but there is still room for long-term, bottom-up and researcher-driven initiatives connecting leading research centres across borders around a common scientific agenda.

One proposal to be explored during the workshop is a European Excellence Initiative within FP10. Such an instrument could support transnational research networks with sufficient scale, scientific autonomy and a long-term funding perspective. The discussion will look at its possible scope, beneficiaries, place within the future Framework Programme and complementarity with existing EU instruments.

The programme will bring together researchers and policy voices to discuss how FP10 could help Europe scale up scientific excellence. The round table will include René Repasi, Member of the European Parliament and Rapporteur on the FP10 specific programme, Krzysztof Pyrć, President of the Foundation for Polish Science, Nils Wörner from the German Rectors’ Conference and Fabrice Lemoine from the University of Lorraine. Aleksandra Pękowska from the Dioscuri Centre at the Nencki Institute of Experimental Biology of the Polish Academy of Sciences will also share a researcher’s perspective.

The event is co-organised by the Permanent Representation of France to the European Union and the Permanent Representation of the Republic of Poland to the European Union, in collaboration with the Polish Science Contact Agency PolSCA of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Brussels.

Agenda of the event HERE.