EU Research Framework Programme 9: Recommendations for a safe and secure society

The upcoming decade will bring new challenges to the Union, especially concerning safety and security. Research is the key to a successful future of the old continent. The Research Framework Programme 9 (FP9) will have to ensure that the right projects are funded.

FP8, or Horizon 2020, is slowly coming to an end. The specific objective “Science with and for society” is funded with 462 mn Euros (2014-2020). The total budget of Horizon 2020 is 77 bn Euros. The Parliament’s current position on the following programme, FP9, is to increase that amount. For the next seven-year EU budget cycle, it shall be raised substantially to at least 120 bn. The research areas health, space, and the European Institute of Technology will benefit strongly from the additional funding. But many stakeholders stress the importance of safety and security as well. Some focus on causal, others on symptom treatment.

A civil society perspective – Preventing the militarisation of the EU

GHA (Global Health Advocates), a network of numerous NGOs with the “mission to carry out political advocacy to ensure policies and resources are effectively addressing health inequalities” released a paper with recommendation for FP9. They emphasise the importance of sustainability and that the programme’s architecture is supposed to ensure that EU research policies work for “people, peace and the planet, leaving no one behind.” The pillars of Horizon 2020 (“Societal Challenges”, “Excellent Science” and “Industrial Leadership”) should complement each other and be used to achieve those goals.

GHA criticise the alleged “tickle down” effects of research increasing the EU’s competitiveness as misleadingand stress the issue of “public return on public investment”. According to the paper, a public investment has to benefit all sections of society in a sustainable way.

Security will be an important issue in the next decade, GHA has a clear position on that:

“The next EU Research Framework Programme should exclusively fund civilian research in order to avoid diverting EU public money from people and the planet to the production of weapons and other military technologies, products and services.”

According to GHA, “hard security” is overemphasised in research, leading to the marginalisation of the dimensions of “human security” (as distinct from national security), conflict prevention, security ethics, and innovative means of addressing the root causes of insecurity. The paper warns, that defence research might become a much more prominent EU research area post 2020, representing a fundamental shift from a civilian peace-oriented society to a military-led one. They argue:

“Military spending, including research, has a rather negative, or at best neutral impact on the economy, and that similar levels of investment in other areas such as renewables energies create more jobs and growth while addressing the major root causes of conflicts.”

Member states that do wish to cooperate in this area should do so via the European Defence Agency at their own cost.

Fraunhofer’s guiding principles

Heading in a different direction are Fraunhofer’s recommendations for the EU’s FP9. Europe’s largest application-oriented research organisation efforts are geared to health, security, communication, energy and the environment. They suggest to consider five principles for future research. Unlike the GHA, they see increasing competitiveness of European industry as top priority for the upcoming framework.

The paper warns of increasing threats in and around Europe and appears to see higher funding for research in military and defence technology as the best reaction:

Europe faces increasing threats of its security and a dramatic change of the strategic global environment. This is accompanied by an essential deficit in investments in defence and security. Conflict has moved to the doorstep of the European Union and terrorism has become a present threat in all European countries. At the same time, Europe faces more and more cyber and hybrid threats that are difficult to tackle with conventional means.

Fraunhofer Institute criticises a decline of defence research in Europe by about 30 per cent. As reason, they name the financial crisis, which caused member states to pull out of collaborative defence R&D projects and cut back their own national spending. “A bottom line is now reached, where it is time to realize that pooling resources in areas of strategic importance for Europe is crucial.” While there are many warnings about future threats and demands for more military and defence research, words as “peace” or phrases about the causes of conflicts are not mentioned in the position paper.

At the same time, they warn of a cannibalisation-effect of EU-funded defence research programme on the European research budget. This is why they demand additional funding for defence, separated from FP9:

Highly sensitive defence research requires special framework conditions, confidentiality and higher funding rates than regular research projects. It also requires deviations from the general rules and the governance applied for instance in Horizon 2020. Results from defence research are not meant to be published open access. The defence research programme needs to be separate from the upcoming 9th framework programme for research and innovation: with its own rules, its own budget and full cost funding.

European organisation for security sees public-private corporations in security as priority

The EOS is an intergovernmental security-oriented organisation (“the voice of the European security industry and research community”). It operates in 15 countries, its members provide security research, solutions and services across many security domains, including border, cyber, transport and crisis management.

The organisation’s main recommendations include doubling the budget for FP9 in line with the security funding chapter and to incentivise participations of SMEs to the programme. Also, targeted strategies should be launched to close the research-to-market gap, including further leveraging instruments such as Pre-Commercial Procurement. Security topics under FP9 should be more forward-looking and foster innovation potential through an end-to-end approach.

For future calls, they propose to focus on integrated border security, soft target and critical infrastructure protection, security screening and detection technologies, and cyber security.

The EOS’ position paper also points out the growing importance of Artificial Intelligence:

We are increasingly relying on artificial intelligence (AI) serving or assisting security. While the potential of AI is far from being fully exploited, it is clear that the technology will continue to advance, and the demand for it will grow. This is partially driven by the fact that AI relies on ICT domains such as big data, cloudification, servicification, virtualisation & softwarisation of networks – all of which continue to evolve apace.

Next to various recommendations of the EOS’ member states concerning policy and budgeting (e.g. more transparent and regular interaction with the EU policymakers to better address gaps between research and the market or enhanced foresight methodologies and operational capabilities that are able to respond to a global scenario of evolving risks and changing threats), the position paper says, that a more effective evaluation process has to be provided:

The evaluation process should be as enduser focused as the implementation process. The solutions anticipated in proposals should be evaluated by at least one end-user in the field to better assess the need for a specific outcome. Furthermore, an end-user Board of Evaluators would be highly relevant for the futureimplementation of the project outcomes. Call-specific evaluations could also be considered.

While the EOS’ recommendations would probably improve certain processes and increase the efficiency of the budget, their definition of a safe and secure society fails to respect social factors (inside and outside the Union) that lead to threats in the first place.

The political debate about FP9 will show, in which general direction the EU’s security policy will go and whether we will succeed to develop ways in order to establish a sustainably prosperous, inclusive and peaceful society.