European Partnerships have become one of the EU’s most important instruments for connecting research, innovation and industry. As the European Commission prepares the future Single Basic Act for Joint Undertakings under the next Framework Programme, it has invited stakeholders to provide feedback on how these partnerships should evolve.
CLIC Innovation submitted the feedback below based on our experience across institutionalised, co-programmed and co-funded partnerships. Our central message is that Europe increasingly needs partnerships that not only fund research and innovation, but also help coordinate the implementation of strategic transitions by connecting industrial ecosystems, investment, infrastructure, regulation and market development.
The text below is the feedback submitted to the European Commission. A more detailed policy paper elaborating these ideas is available at the end of this blog post.
CLIC Innovation welcomes the Commission’s initiative to refine the future architecture of European Partnerships. CLIC is a Finnish open innovation cluster facilitating industry-driven RDI collaboration in bioeconomy, circular economy and sustainable energy systems. Through our involvement in institutionalised, co-programmed and co-funded partnerships, we offer a cross-partnership perspective rather than the view of any single partnership.
A Clearer Organising Principle for Future Partnerships
We support the Commission’s objectives of strengthening competitiveness, resilience, sustainability and strategic autonomy, as well as its emphasis on innovation-to-investment pathways, deployment, synergies and simplification. The strategic objectives behind this agenda are closely interconnected and require a clearer organising principle for future partnerships. Rather than being defined by isolated sectors or technology domains, the future partnership architecture should primarily be organised around strategically important industrial and innovation ecosystems whose shared objectives and implementation agendas are defined by the strategic transitions they are expected to deliver. This does not imply a single model for all partnerships, but partnerships should be used where sustained strategic coordination and long-term ecosystem mobilisation create clear added value.
As Europe’s challenge shifts from technology development to system implementation, this added value should lie especially in sustained strategic coordination, ecosystem mobilisation and implementation capacity. Research and innovation remain essential, but large-scale transition also requires coordinated investment, infrastructure, regulation, demand creation, market formation, skills and national and regional ecosystem alignment. Future partnerships should therefore combine R&I funding with shared transition objectives, implementation-oriented agendas and the governance capacity needed to support system-level implementation. Strategic Research and Innovation Agendas (SRIAs) – the documents that set each partnership’s priorities – should evolve from technology roadmaps towards transition roadmaps for system implementation.
Building on What Already Works and Mobilising Private Investment
The Single Basic Act should build on the governance capabilities, stakeholder communities and industrial ecosystems already created by today’s partnerships. Strong institutionalised partnerships demonstrate value beyond research funding: they mobilise industrial ecosystems, coordinate long-term collaboration, support deployment pathways and improve investment confidence. Clean hydrogen activities such as Hydrogen Valleys illustrate how partnerships can support integrated implementation ecosystems across value chains and regions. Co-funded partnerships such as CETPartnership – which coordinates national research on the clean energy transition show complementary strengths in aligning national R&I priorities, linking national funding programmes and connecting national and regional innovation ecosystems around transition objectives. Future partnership design should draw on these complementary capabilities.
Streamlining may be necessary, but it should be guided by transition logic and governance capability. Governance and financial arrangements should reduce complexity for applicants and implementers, rather than primarily serve programme design and administration.
Finally, private commitment should be understood primarily through companies’ decisions to invest, deploy solutions and assume commercial risk when credible market opportunities emerge. Private investment depends on credible market opportunities and sufficiently predictable framework conditions. Industry should remain closely involved in shaping transition agendas, as companies make many of the investment decisions required for implementation. Future contribution models should recognise co-funding, internal R&D, pilot and demonstration assets, manufacturing capabilities, deployment investments and commercial risk-taking, and provide a clear value proposition for those whose resources are mobilised.
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