1.1. Specific objective

The specific objective is to reinforce the excellence, dynamism and creativity of European research. Europe has set out its ambition to move to a new economic model based on smart, sustainable and inclusive growth. This type of transformation will need more than incremental improvements to current technologies and knowledge. It will require much higher capacity for basic research and science-based innovation fuelled by radical new knowledge, allowing Europe to take a leading role in creating the scientific and technological paradigm shifts which will be the key drivers of productivity growth, competitiveness, wealth, sustainable development and social progress in the future industries and sectors. Such paradigm shifts have historically tended to originate from the public-sector science base before going on to lay the foundations for whole new industries and sectors. World-leading innovation is closely associated with excellent science. Once the undisputed leader, Europe has fallen behind in the race to produce the very best cutting-edge science and has played a secondary role to the United States in the major post-war technological advances. Although the Union remains the largest producer of scientific publications in the world, the United States produces twice as many of the most influential papers (the top 1 % by citation count). Similarly, international university rankings show that US universities dominate the top places. In addition, 70 % of the world's Nobel Prize winners are based in the United States. One part of the challenge is that while Europe and the United States invest similar amounts in their public-sector science bases, the Union has nearly three times as many public-sector researchers, resulting in significantly lower investment per researcher. Moreover, US funding is more selective about allocating resources to the leading researchers. This helps to explain why the Union's public-sector researchers are, on average, less productive and, altogether, make less combined scientific impact than their far less numerous US counterparts. Another major part of the challenge is that in many European countries the public and private sector still does not offer sufficiently attractive conditions for the best researchers. It can take many years before talented young researchers are able to become independent scientists in their own right. This leads to a dramatic waste of Europe's research potential by delaying and in some cases even inhibiting the emergence of the next generation of researchers, who bring new ideas and energy, and by enticing excellent researchers starting their career to seek advancement elsewhere. Furthermore, these factors compound Europe's relative unattractiveness in the global competition for scientific talent.

← 1. European Research Council (ERC) · All articles · anx_I__cpt_20__cpt_1__cpt_1__text_1 →

Source: EUR-Lex (Cellar) · retrieved 2026-11-03 · Text as adopted (Official Journal); later amendments are not incorporated in this text.