Europe has built one of the world’s most advanced collaborative research and innovation systems. Yet turning this strength into large-scale deployment and industrial transformation remains a fundamental challenge. Through programmes such as Horizon Europe and a wide range of European partnerships, the EU has successfully mobilised universities, research organisations, industry and public authorities around shared innovation agendas.
At the same time, the global context in which these systems operate has become increasingly challenging. While Europe has long competed globally in developing and commercialising new technologies, recent geopolitical developments have made existing structural vulnerabilities more visible. Intensifying competition, concerns about resilient supply chains and the need to maintain industrial competitiveness have highlighted the importance of not only generating new technologies in Europe but also deploying them at scale.
Europe has become increasingly strong in supporting research and technological development. Translating these advances into large-scale deployment and industrial investment, however, remains far more difficult.
In practice, Europe’s innovation landscape remains fragmented across several dimensions: funding instruments, governance structures, regulatory environments, as well as technology, market and societal readiness levels. Research, development, demonstration and deployment are often supported by different programmes and initiatives operating under different rules.
This fragmentation contributes to persistent gaps along the innovation chain — from research to deployment and large-scale investment — which become particularly visible in sustainability transitions such as the transformation of energy, industry and materials systems.
European partnerships play a central role in Europe’s research and innovation landscape. They bring together industry, research organisations, public authorities and funding bodies to develop shared agendas, coordinate investments and advance innovation across key sectors.
Industry Participates in Partnerships for More Than Projects
For industry, participation in European partnerships is not only about individual projects.
Companies engage in collaborative research because partnerships provide a space to build technological capabilities, develop value chains and prepare future investments. Research and innovation funding helps reduce technological and financial risks, while also addressing societal and environmental challenges along the pathway from idea to industrial application.
But if that pathway stops at demonstration, the innovation journey remains incomplete.
Many companies therefore see European partnerships as an opportunity not just to advance research, but to build the foundations for new markets, industrial investment and competitive advantage.
In other words, the value of projects lies not only in their immediate results but in how they enable future markets, industrial deployment and investment.
A Fragmented Partnership Landscape
The current European partnership landscape includes several different models.
- Joint Undertakings bring strong industrial participation and strategic governance.
- Co-funded partnerships excel at coordinating national research funding agencies.
- Co-programmed partnerships create alignment between the European Commission and industry roadmaps.
Each of these models contributes valuable elements to Europe’s innovation ecosystem. However, none of them alone fully integrates the innovation pathway from research through demonstration to large-scale industrial deployment.
At the same time, ongoing discussions on the future of European partnerships and the next EU framework programme increasingly recognise the importance of scaling up innovations and mobilising investment. Advisory structures such as Deployment Groups are often established to explore financing pathways and connect innovation projects with investors.
These initiatives are valuable, but they remain largely coordination mechanisms. They do not fundamentally change how innovation, deployment and investment are governed and financed, as the underlying funding instruments, decision-making structures and investment frameworks remain largely separate.
The Missing Link: From Innovation to Deployment
Sustainability transitions require more than research programmes.
They require innovation systems capable of supporting technologies across the entire pathway from research to deployment and the creation of new markets:
research → development → demonstration → deployment → market scale-up
In practice, the most difficult phase often emerges at the demonstration stage, when technologies must move from pilot environments toward large-scale industrial deployment. Even when technical feasibility has been proven, significant investments, supportive regulation and market development are still required before new solutions can transform industries.
This deployment gap is widely recognised across sectors ranging from clean energy to circular and bio-based industries.
If Europe cannot move innovations from laboratories and pilot plants into large-scale industrial deployment, there is a growing risk that new technologies, value chains and investment opportunities will develop elsewhere — or that the transition itself will not advance at the required pace. Bridging this gap is therefore not only an innovation policy challenge, but also a question of Europe’s industrial competitiveness and strategic resilience.
Toward a New Type of European Partnership
One possible direction for future European innovation policy would be to experiment with a new type of partnership designed specifically to support sustainability transitions and other major societal transformations such as the digital transition. For the sake of discussion, such a model could be described as a “Super Partnership” — an integrated platform combining research, deployment, scale-up and investment within a single strategic framework.
Such a partnership would combine the strongest elements of existing models while extending their scope. A key objective would also be to accelerate the pathway from innovation to deployment.
Key features could include:
- Integrated funding architecture, combining EU funding, national RDI funding and industrial investment within a coordinated programme framework.
- TRL continuity, ensuring support from research and development through demonstration and into deployment-ready technologies, including the ability to chain projects across funding instruments.
- Industrial co-steering, allowing companies to help shape technology roadmaps and investment pathways.
- Mission-oriented governance, aligning innovation efforts with societal transition goals such as climate neutrality and circular economy.
- Stronger links to deployment and market shaping, connecting innovation activities with regulatory development, standards and demand-side policies.
Rather than replacing existing partnerships, such a model could bring together their most effective features within a single transition-oriented platform.
A Conversation Europe Needs to Have
Europe’s sustainability transitions will require unprecedented levels of innovation, investment and coordination across sectors and countries.
The current partnership landscape has already demonstrated the power of collaboration in European research and innovation. The next step may be to explore how these collaborative structures could evolve to better support deployment and industrial transformation.
The question is therefore not whether Europe needs collaborative innovation partnerships. They have become a central instrument of Europe’s research and innovation system, even as debates continue about their governance, effectiveness and overall number.
The more relevant question may be how the next generation of partnerships should evolve to help bridge the persistent gaps along the innovation chain from research and development to deployment and large-scale investment.
If Europe wants its innovations to shape global markets, strengthen resilient supply chains and maintain industrial competitiveness, this is a conversation worth having.
Should the next generation of European partnerships evolve toward more integrated transition platforms combining research, deployment and investment, or would such a model be institutionally too complex to implement?
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