ERRIN inputs to the European Competitiveness Fund following the European Parliament draft report
As the discussions on the Multiannual Financial Framework post-2027 continue, ERRIN, together with its members, has been active in preparing inputs and recommendations to the European Competitiveness Fund (ECF) proposal of the European Commission from July 2025. Following the release of the draft European Parliament’s report on the topic on 20 April 2026, we have also developed the third iteration of our amendment proposals before the deadline of 11 May. These amendments reflect the proposals made by the co-rapporteurs in their ECF draft report.
Policy windows
While we welcome the objective to further define clear priorities in the ECF proposal, we are concerned that the much more limited approach to the policy windows highlighting technology and infrastructures, risks forgetting the societal dimension, which is crucial for competitiveness. For example, culture and creative industries are also hardly mentioned in the proposal. We have also proposed keeping resilience under the fourth policy window on "Resilience and Security, Defence Industry, and Space". Resilience should be considered in a broad sense and not limited to raw materials. Moving many of the elements related to resilience under the second policy window transforms the proposed priority on “Sustainable Prosperity” into an extremely ambitious priority backed with very limited funding.
Ecosystems
Knowledge and innovation capacity, crucial for Europe’s global competitiveness, are concentrated in geographically clustered ecosystems. These ecosystems play a vital role in industrial scaling and value chain development. ERRIN therefore welcomes the addition in the draft report recognising the role of place-based industrial ecosystems and the support foreseen for Net‑Zero Acceleration Valleys and Industrial Acceleration Areas. Such an approach should also be broadened to cover the key sectors under the other three policy windows. And as the EU added value comes from the connections created among the valleys / ecosystems, their collaboration should be further supported through the proposed instruments such as the Single Market Value Chains Builder and the EU Tech Front Runners.
We also support the novelty of "Horizon Europe Pathway Actions" designed to bring Horizon Europe Pillar II projects to industrial deployment. However, we would propose to ensure that such actions are sufficiently flexible and also support creating a funding pathway not only from Horizon Europe to ECF, but also from national and regional R&I funding (NRPPs) to ECF, thus contributing to creating the seamless investment journey proposed.
EU Missions
In addition, ERRIN considers the EU Missions to be essential drivers of European competitiveness and the climate transition and support to their further deployment should be supported by ECF under the policy windows. The Missions already mobilise regional ecosystems, industry, research organisations and public authorities around concrete deployment challenges in areas directly covered by the ECF: health, clean transition, digitalisation, climate resilience, oceans and waters, agriculture and urban innovation. By integrating the Missions into the ECF architecture, the EU can build on existing multi-level governance structures, living labs and lighthouse areas that have proven effective in accelerating innovation uptake and reducing fragmentation. This alignment ensures a seamless investment journey from research to deployment, strengthens territorial competitiveness, and maximises the impact of EU funding by linking Mission-driven solutions with the industrial, technological and infrastructural priorities of the ECF.
Back in April this year, ERRIN launched an exercise of mapping regional and local investment needs under the future ECF, asking all members to send in their contributions in a pre-prepared Excel file. The inputs will support the network’s advocacy efforts in the context of ongoing discussions on the ECF. We are still collecting the contributions, with a new deadline on 1 June. If you would like to learn more and support this exercise, please find all the details on how to provide your input here.