As the global race for talent intensifies and transatlantic academic ecosystems come under stress, Europe has a unique strategic opportunity to redefine itself as a global hub for scientific excellence, institutional openness, and intellectual freedom.
The European Union has begun taking steps in this direction through targeted programmes like the Choose Europe Plan—a €500 million pilot initiative under the current Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) to improve Europe’s attractiveness to international students and researchers.
However, the scale of the geopolitical challenge requires a more ambitious and systemic response. At Ave Europa, we elaborate our response by drawing on the legacy of past European instruments (such as Horizon Europe, InvestEU, and Erasmus+), the findings of the Competitiveness Report, and the strategic direction outlined in the Draghi Report.
In order to turn a momentary shock in the trans-Atlantic partnership into an opportunity to attract philanthropic foundations into EU research and innovation funding instruments, Ave Europa is launching a policy proposal — a policy prototype — designed to:
Assess the responsiveness of European institutions to the American transition crisis, by proposing an emergency mechanism to attract high-ranking researchers and scientific talent from the United States — The Benjamin Franklin Fund;
Rethink the role of research sovereignty within the architecture of the next Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF), which should be reconceived as a mission- and project-driven administration. This vision would take shape within the broader Sovereignty and Competitiveness Fund that we advocate as a central pillar of the next MFF.
Under these premises, the Benjamin Franklin Fund, a €12,6 billion initiative over 2025–2027, is designed to act as both a geopolitical signal and an institutional prototype.
Building directly on the Choose Europe pilot and mobilizing other funding lines under Horizon Europe, Erasmus+, and InvestEU, the Fund would consolidate and amplify Europe’s efforts to attract top-tier researchers—especially from the United States—at a moment of domestic retrenchment in American academia.
The Benjamin Franklin Fund would be structured as a balanced public-private investment platform, with €3,15 billion per year from the EU budget and an additional €3,15 billion per year from the European Investment Bank, via the InvestEU programme. In line with EU funding principles, all disbursements would be conditional on national co-financing (1:0,6), US philanthropic and investment participations (1:2), and structural reforms that facilitate private investment in universities, align degree structures with international standards (generalist Bachelor’s degrees, modular pathways), and streamline visas and accreditation processes for foreign researchers and students.
To embed long-term change, the Fund would provide 7-year “super grants” ranging from €500,000 to €2 million, primarily through blended infrastructure and academic financing. These grants would target disciplines particularly affected by ideological constraints in the United States — including AI, green technologies, reproductive and social sciences, liberal arts, and democratic studies.
The goal is to not merely host foreign talent temporarily, but to anchor it systemically within the European academic and innovation landscape. Welcoming a new generation of American students and researchers would also provide Europe with a unique opportunity to rethink the social and economic conditions of student life, and to elevate its own model of higher education as a space of both personal development, intellectual freedom and social recognition.
Crucially, the Benjamin Franklin Fund would be pan-European in scope, open not only to EU Member States but also to associated countries including the United Kingdom, EFTA states, and EU accession candidates, or third-countries aligned with our standards of academic freedom and freedom of inquiry.
From Pilot to Prototype: Structuring the Next Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF)
The Benjamin Franklin Fund is not merely a geopolitical response to the current academic and technological realignments; it is a forward-looking strategic prototype for the European Union’s post-2027 financial architecture. By design, it anticipates and operationalises the core principles articulated in the Draghi Report on European Competitiveness (2024), the Competitiveness Compass proposed by the Commission in 2023, and the evolving logic of European strategic autonomy.
As such, the Fund should be understood as the conceptual and financial foundation for a new Sovereignty and Competitiveness Fund (SCF)—an integrated flagship instrument of the 2028–2034 Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF). This fund, proposed by the Draghi Report and supported by multiple European Council conclusions, would consolidate investments in key domains (energy, defence, digital, innovation, and human capital) under a coordinated, sovereign financing logic, leveraging both public and private capital.
The Attractivity Compartment
Within this new SCF, we propose the establishment of a dedicated “Attractivity Compartment”. This compartment would serve to institutionalise and expand the legacy of both Choose Europe and the Benjamin Franklin Fund, transforming Europe’s talent attraction strategy from a series of ad hoc programmes into a permanent, strategic pillar of EU policy.
With a proposed budgetary envelope of at least €40 billion over seven years (2028–2034), the Attractivity Compartment would integrate the following key spending categories:
| Spending Category | Estimated Budget (€ billion) |
| Talent Attractivity (Grants & Fellowships) | 12 |
| Academic Infrastructure | 8 |
| Strategic Research Clusters (AI, GreenTech, Quantum) | 12 |
| Mobility & Exchange (intra-EU & Global South) | 3 |
| Structural Reform Incentives | 2 |
| Emergency Talent Schemes (e.g. Brain Drain Reversal) | 3 |
This compartment would operate through a unified governance framework, likely integrated into a restructured European Innovation and Sovereignty Agency (EISA), which would assume strategic oversight across pillars and ensure co-financing arrangements with Member States and associated countries. It would also act as a “clearing house” for reform conditionality, linking EU funding to tangible progress in key structural domains: university governance, degree modularity, research visa liberalisation, and private capital mobilisation.
To attract American philanthropic investment, Europe must establish a welcoming partnership framework for fundraising, donations, and long-term engagement in European academic projects. This requires a dual reform effort:
At the level of university governance, the development of a common codification system for degrees, credentials, and academic pathways, aligned more closely with U.S. standards, in order to facilitate recognition, portability, and joint initiatives.
At the EU administrative level, the creation of a one-stop shop dedicated to American foundations willing to invest in students and academic capital across the European university network — providing legal clarity, co-financing pathways, and visibility;
Improving the transparency and readability of both EU administrative procedures and the governance of Europe’s leading training and research centres will help create a business-friendly environment. This, in turn, can attract participation from American investment funds and philanthropic foundations, who would find in Europe a stable and strategic framework for research, development, and industrial or dual-use valorisation of scientific knowledge.
Alignment with Strategic Frameworks
This proposal is fully aligned with:
- The Draghi Report (2024), which advocates for an EU-level fiscal architecture capable of mobilising €650–800 billion annually, including a strong emphasis on strategic human capital investment.
- The Competitiveness Compass (2023), which highlights talent development and retention as central to EU resilience, and calls for “a long-term roadmap for attracting global excellence in science, technology and innovation.”
- The 2025 Commission Work Programme, which sets out goals for simplifying EU instruments, increasing budgetary flexibility, and delivering a “Bolder, Simpler, Faster Union” by 2030, with research and education at its core.
- Strategic Autonomy doctrine, as elaborated by the European Council and the Versailles Declaration (2022), identifying talent sovereignty as a fourth pillar, alongside defence, energy, and digital infrastructure.
Fiscal Coherence and Budgetary Realism
The proposed €40 billion envelope over seven years represents a feasible scaling-up of current pilot instruments and fund-of-fund structures:
- Equivalent to €5,7 billion/year, which is less than 1.5% of the Draghi-endorsed annual EU investment gap (~€750 billion/year).
- Built on an established logic of EU leverage: combining EU budget grants, EIB guarantees (InvestEU), and public-private co-financing.
Furthermore, such a compartment would improve budgetary predictability for universities, reduce fragmentation of academic instruments (Horizon, Erasmus+, EIC), and offer a single operational gateway for talent and science-based sovereignty.
Such investments and donations would be subject to a favourable European fiscal regime — for instance, a flat tax of 5% — designed both to cover the administrative costs of EU coordination and to generate a surplus that could be reinvested into strategic projects. This would provide a clear, predictable and attractive framework for U.S.-based philanthropic and impact investors, while reinforcing Europe’s capacity to deploy resources towards research infrastructure, innovation clusters and dual-use industrial applications.
Feasibility Analysis
A. Strategic and Fiscal Continuity with the Draghi Report
The Benjamin Franklin Fund, conceived as an €12,6 billion initiative over 2025–2027, aligns directly with the vision laid out in the Draghi Report on the Future of European Competitiveness (September 2024). That report calls for a large-scale financial pivot, arguing for annual additional public and private investment of €750 to €800 billion, or approximately 5 percent of EU GDP, in order to restore Europe’s industrial and technological competitiveness in the face of mounting transatlantic and global pressures.
The Benjamin Franklin Fund can be presented as a first-generation pilot of this logic, offering a credible financial prototype that blends EU budget resources with national and private capital under a structurally reformed model of investment.
| Strategic Element | Benjamin Franklin Fund (2025–2027) | Draghi Report (2024) |
| Total size | €12,6 billion over 3 years | €750–800 billion/year in total strategic investment |
| Direct EU contribution | €6,3 billion (via grants and guarantees) | Proposed EU-level borrowing and pooling instruments |
| National/private co-financing | €6,3 billion (public, institutional, philanthropic) | Capital market mobilisation via Union des Marchés de Capitaux |
| Strategic objective | Global talent attraction and research sovereignty | Innovation and industrial renewal |
| Financial instruments | Grants, InvestEU guarantees, co-financing | Securitisation, equity instruments, blended facilities |
| Structural reforms attached | Research visa, modular degrees, dual academic recognition | Regulatory simplification and capital markets integration |
The Fund is both fiscally modest and strategically targeted. It does not require the creation of new instruments but rather restructures and combines existing programmes under a shared strategic banner, in line with the Draghi recommendations on rationalising and scaling European funding logic, entering in resonance with the current momentum imposed by the second Trump administration.
B. Budgetary Architecture and De-Budgetisation Logic (2025–2027)
The Fund would not necessitate a disruptive reallocation within the current MFF. Instead, it relies on the intelligent mobilisation of underutilised envelopes and legacy mechanisms across three flagship programmes: Horizon Europe, InvestEU, and Erasmus+.
1. Horizon Europe (2021–2027)
- Total programme budget: €95.5 billion
- Estimated uncommitted funds by end-2025: €15–€20 billion
- Relevant instruments: Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions, ERC Synergy Grants, ERA Chairs, Teaming and Twinning projects, infrastructure support under Pillar 2 and Pillar 4
2. InvestEU (2021–2027)
- Total budgetary guarantee: €26.2 billion
- R&I window allocation: up to €11.25 billion
- Leverage ratio: 1:6 on average, though a 1:2 ratio is retained for conservative structuring in the Benjamin Franklin Fund
- Instruments: EIB loans for university infrastructure, research labs, doctoral and postdoctoral mobility, equity for innovation-intensive academic ventures
3. Erasmus+
- Programme envelope: €26.2 billion (2021–2027)
- Targetable actions: Jean Monnet Centres, Doctoral Networks, Innovation Alliances, Capacity Building in Higher Education
4. Summary of Leverage and Co-Financing Potential (2025–2027)
| Source | Amount (EUR billion) | Mechanism |
| EU direct budget (grants) | 3,15 | Horizon Europe, Erasmus+, Choose Europe pilot |
| EU indirect (InvestEU) | 3,15 | Guarantees via EIB and national promotional banks |
| National co-financing | 2,1 | Public match funding from ministries and regions |
| Private/philanthropic | 4,2 | American Foundations, university consortia, impact investors |
| Total (2025–2027) | 12,6 | Structured leverage and redeployment |
Through this structure, €6,3 billion of EU-level outlay (only half of the total volume) supports a consolidated investment of €12,6 billion. The approach avoids new tax-based resources and relies instead on the de-budgetisation of legacy instruments, one of the core recommendations of the Draghi blueprint.
C. From Transitional Instrument to Structural Compartment
To sustain the effort beyond 2027, the Benjamin Franklin Fund would serve as the political and institutional blueprint for a new “Attractivity Compartment” within the post-2027 Sovereignty and Competitiveness Fund (SCF), one of the central pillars proposed by both the Draghi Report and the Commission’s Competitiveness Compass (2023). This compartment would integrate university infrastructure, talent mobility, reform incentives, and cross-border collaboration under a single governance model.
This architecture ensures: Continuity, between pilot and long-term structure ; Streamlining, of EU instruments into a fund-of-funds logic ; Institutional rationalisation, likely via the future European Innovation and Sovereignty Agency (EISA).
From Pilot to Prototype: Structuring the Next MFF
Budgetisation
The Benjamin Franklin Fund is not only a timely response to shifting geopolitical conditions—it is also a forward-facing strategic prototype for the post-2027 Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF). It lays the groundwork for a new Sovereignty and Competitiveness Fund (SCF), as envisioned in the Draghi Report on European Competitiveness (2024) and anticipated by the Commission’s Competitiveness Compass. Within this architecture, a dedicated Research Sovereignty Compartment would transform Europe’s approach to talent attraction from a temporary programme into a structural, long-term capacity.
I. 2025–2027: Scaling through Budgetary Recombination
The Benjamin Franklin Fund’s €12,6 billion envelope over 2025–2027 is designed to rely not on additional own resources, but on the strategic redeployment and blending of existing instruments—specifically Horizon Europe, InvestEU, and Erasmus+. The objective is to maximise the impact of existing EU programmes while introducing a new governance and allocation logic tailored to research sovereignty and global talent.
1. Choose Europe Pilot (2024–2025)
Budget: €500 million
Programme source: Horizon Europe (Pillar 2 “Culture & Creativity”; Pillar 4 “Widening Participation”), with NDICI top-ups for Ukraine and Western Balkans
Available budget margin: Horizon Europe (2021–2027) has an estimated €15–20 billion unspent by end-2025
Relevant instruments : Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) ; ERC Synergy Grants ; ERA Chairs ; Teaming & Twinning initiatives;
2. Combinability and Leverage Potential
- InvestEU (R&I window): up to €11.25 billion in guarantees available for higher education, research infrastructure, and deep tech hubs (conservative mobilisation estimate: €4–6 billion)
- Erasmus+ (€26.2 billion total): activation of “Jean Monnet”, “Doctoral Networks” and “Alliances for Innovation”
- Digital Europe & European Innovation Council (EIC): leveraged where convergence with AI, quantum and health domains is required
3. Consolidated leverage structure (2025–2027)
| Source | Amount (EUR billion) | Mechanism |
| EU budget (direct grants) | 3,15 | Horizon Europe, Erasmus+, Choose Europe |
| InvestEU (guarantees) | 3,15 | EIB guarantees, equity, blended facilities |
| National co-financing | 2,1 | Ministries, recovery instruments, regional agencies |
| Private/philanthropic | 4,2 | University foundations, philanthropic donors, research consortia |
| Total | 12,6 | Blended and structured over a 3-year launch phase |
Only €3,15 billion would be drawn directly from the EU budget, with the remaining 66–75% financed through structured leverage and strategic co-investment.
This 1:2 leverage ratio is conservative and fully plausible under existing EU financial mechanisms. While InvestEU routinely achieves 1:5 or more in infrastructure-heavy portfolios, a 1:2 ratio is prudent and realistic for a research-driven blend of mobility, infrastructure and grants with high-ranked US investment funds and philanthropic foundations.
II. 2028–2034: Institutionalising Research Sovereignty in the MFF
From 2028 onward, the Fund would transition from a transitional mechanism to a fully-fledged Research Sovereignty Compartment within the SCF—Europe’s central funding instrument for strategic autonomy.
Estimated volume of the SCF: €200 billion (2028–2034), combining national budgets, EIB vehicles, and repurposed programme surpluses (reflows)
Research Sovereignty Compartment share: €40 billion, or ~20% of the human capital segment of the SCF
| Sub-compartment | Amount (€ billion) |
| Talent Attractivity (grants, fellowships) | 12 |
| Academic Infrastructure (labs, campuses, ICT) | 8 |
| Digital, AI, GreenTech & Quantum Hubs | 12 |
| Mobility and Exchange (intra-EU + Global South) | 3 |
| Reform Incentives (visas, diplomas, co-finance) | 2 |
| Emergency Talent Schemes (brain drain reversal) | 3 |
| Total | 40 |
This structure mirrors the long-term integration model of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) and Cohesion Policy, offering predictable, long-cycle investment in research and academic sovereignty. It would be coordinated by a restructured European Innovation and Sovereignty Agency (EISA), acting as both fund manager and reform platform, enabling interinstitutional coherence and co-investment at national level.
Interlude
The Benjamin Franklin Fund demonstrates how strategic objectives such as research sovereignty and talent attraction can be achieved without immediate recourse to new own resources or complex treaty revisions. By leveraging underutilised budgetary instruments and aligning national co-financing with EU structural priorities, the Fund combines modest EU expenditure with high systemic impact.
It is a practical and symbolic prototype for the future European budget architecture. It anticipates the recommendations of the Draghi Report, responds directly to the talent pillar of the Competitiveness Compass, and offers a pragmatic transition from scattered programmes to a cohesive, long-term sovereignty policy.
III-Embedding Long-Term Change: Structural Reforms and Academic Sovereignty
To ensure that talent attraction becomes more than a temporary gesture of hospitality, the Benjamin Franklin Fund would embed structural reforms into its operational model. At its core lies a simple principle: Europe must not only host foreign scientific excellence—it must anchor it, systemically and durably, within its academic, legal and institutional fabric. The Fund’s long-term success depends on three interlocking pillars of reform: governance, curriculum, and institutional anchoring.
I. The “Super Grant” Mechanism as Driver of Change
At the heart of the Fund’s operational model is a new class of long-cycle, high-impact funding instruments: seven-year “Super Grants” ranging from €500,000 to €2 million. These grants would be awarded through competitive calls under a reformed EISA governance structure and would primarily support blended investments in research infrastructure, personnel, mobility, and institutional cooperation.
Eligible fields would include those where ideological constraints, political capture, or funding volatility in third countries (notably the United States) undermine the freedom of scientific inquiry. Eligible fields would focus on sectors that are structurally critical to Europe’s strategic autonomy and where geopolitical tensions or asymmetric dependencies (notably with the United States or China) undermine Europe’s long-term interests. These include:
- Dual-use technologies and resilient supply chains
- Artificial Intelligence and foundational digital technologies
- GreenTech and decarbonisation engineering
- Quantum technologies and secure communications
- Advanced manufacturing and materials science
- Biotechnologies for health and bio-industrial resilience
Super Grants would be conditional on specific anchoring mechanisms, including:
- Doctoral co-supervision with European institutions
- Participation in curriculum design and institutional governance
- Mentorship schemes for early-career European researchers
- Anchoring in European industrial or research infrastructure
- European Research-Industry Sovereignty Contract
- Contribution to European certification, standardisation, or open industrial platforms
- Residency or long-term collaboration frameworks for non-EU researchers
II. Structural Reform Agenda for the European Research Area
The Fund’s long-term effectiveness depends on its ability to trigger structural transformation within the European Research Area (ERA). These reforms, inspired by the Humboldtian model of academic freedom and the Liberal Arts tradition of generalist formation, would support the institutional conditions for scientific sovereignty.
1. Institutional and Legal Reforms
- Adoption of a standardised 3-year generalist Bachelor’s degree, recognisable and transferable across all EU and associated countries, in alignment with global (notably Anglo-American) academic structures.
- Establishment of a common framework for scientific visas and residence permits, via an expanded “European Blue Card for Researchers,” with accelerated procedures for high-talent third-country nationals.
- Transparent and accelerated accreditation procedures for international partner institutions (notably in the US, UK, and associated countries) to facilitate dual degrees and joint research chairs.
2. Curricular Reform and Pedagogical Renewal
The Fund would provide earmarked financing for the introduction of modular and interdisciplinary curricula in a select number of European universities, forming a network of Liberal Arts pilot institutions (20% of participating universities). These pilots would include:
- A core curriculum in logic, history, law, political economy, and digital humanities
- Modular degree structures allowing flexible academic pathways across disciplines and institutions
- Transatlantic and transcontinental academic cooperation, including joint summer schools, research chairs, and EU–US PhD pathways
This renewal would support not only the attraction of non-European students and researchers, but the retention and revalorisation of Europe’s own intellectual tradition—particularly in fields marginalised by utilitarian policy biases or ideological hostility.
Linking modular academic pathways with a formalised bachelor-level certification would allow for two systemic advances in the European higher education model:
- The normalisation of professional entry after a generalist three-year degree
This would provide structured and socially recognised access to professions in teaching, writing, cultural and communication sectors — reinforcing the value of generalist education while anchoring it in real employment pathways. - The repositioning of the master’s degree as a platform for advanced research-driven projects
Rather than functioning merely as a continuation of coursework, the master’s level would serve as a gateway to structured research contracts, innovation fellowships, or co-supervised industry-university projects — particularly in strategic technological fields.
3. Anchoring Measures and Institutional Responsibility
Talent attraction must not rely on symbolic gestures or temporary hosting. The Fund would therefore require from host institutions a series of concrete obligations linked to grant disbursement:
- Co-investment from host universities or Member States
- Active integration of foreign researchers into governance structures
- Long-term institutional partnerships with global peer institutions
- Participation in EISA-led monitoring on researcher satisfaction, career prospects, and academic freedom
III. Systemic Rationalisation and a Fund-of-Funds Architecture
The Fund would also act as a lever for deep structural rationalisation of the EU’s current academic and research funding platforms. Fragmentation across Horizon Europe, Erasmus+, Digital Europe, EIC, and other instruments results in overlapping mandates, excessive transaction costs, and limited strategic coherence.
The Benjamin Franklin Fund would serve as a proof of concept for a logic of Compartmentalization, in a future unified, mission-driven fund-of-funds model, anchored within the future Sovereignty and Competitiveness Fund. Under this model:
- Multi-year investment streams would be channelled through a single governance body
- Budget lines would be bundled according to strategic missions, not legacy structures
- Talent, knowledge, and infrastructure would be treated as interdependent investments, not separate budget headings
This rationalisation aligns with the Draghi Report’s call for simplified instruments, fewer silos, and a European capacity to act. It anticipates the Commission’s broader agenda of programmatic simplification, as laid out in the 2025 Work Programme under the headline “A Bolder, Simpler, Faster Union.”
IV. A Truly Pan-European Framework
In keeping with its geopolitical and civilisational scope, the Fund would be open beyond the borders of the EU. Participation would be extended to:
- The United States and the European Union
- EU Member States
- Associated countries, including the United Kingdom, EFTA states (Switzerland, Norway, Iceland, Liechtenstein), and EU accession candidates (Western Balkans, Georgia, Moldova, Ukraine)
- Countries with strong rule-of-law alignment and commitment to academic freedom
Reframing the Proposal: From Fiscal Mechanism to Strategic Vision
The Benjamin Franklin Fund is more than a funding line. It is a structural answer to a systemic risk. It responds to the fragmentation of existing European research instruments, the intensifying global competition for talent, and the geopolitical vulnerabilities of transatlantic academic ecosystems.
What we have attempted to propose is not a new institution, nor an experimental programme in the abstract. We have proposed a coordinated financial and budgetary instrument, grounded in existing frameworks, designed around a credible roadmap drawn from the European Commission’s own strategic declarations—notably the Competitiveness Compass—and the institutional logics outlined in the Draghi Report on European Competitiveness.
We have aimed to offer realistic financial orders of magnitude, deploying conservative leverage ratios, drawing on underutilised programme envelopes, and aligning with plausible co-financing capacities across Member States and institutional partners. The figures—€12,6 billion for the transitional phase (2025–2027), €40 billion for the structural compartment (2028–2034)—are grounded in the budgetary grammar of the Multiannual Financial Framework, not speculative wish lists.
But beyond the architecture, this proposal is above all a political proposition, a civilisational choice, and a pragmatic rethinking of how the European Union could lead in the realm of global science.
We believe that the Benjamin Franklin Fund is the most meaningful response Europe can offer to Donald Trump — not a gesture of retaliation or defiance, but a gesture of openness. If America chooses to close its doors to us, then ours will remain wide open: to your researchers, to your philanthropic institutions. Europe must present itself as a haven of stability for liberal-minded donors seeking to support free and independent research. To those calling for decoupling, we respond with deeper integration — by forging a bridge between American philanthropy and European administrative rigor.
We have sought to demonstrate how a vision of research sovereignty can be translated into administrative rationalisation—not through additional complexity, but through simplification: the merging of scattered instruments into mission-driven compartments, each endowed with its own legal, budgetary and operational toolkit, and open to result-oriented partnerships with both civil society and economic actors.
In doing so, a distinctive Ave Europa method begins to emerge:
- Geostrategic vigilance — first and foremost, the ability to perceive asymmetrical shocks as opportunities for long-term resilience, by turning threats into levers of action;
- Radical pragmatism — a good public policy is above all a compelling business case: one that maximises the multiplier effect of public spending by creating a clear, investable, pro-business framework;
- Assumed partnership — rather than severing ties with the United States, we turn strategic drift into an opportunity for renewed alignment: by connecting a high-value sector (philanthropy) with a major geopolitical moment (reversing the brain drain, or at least reshaping its symbolic balance);
- And, perhaps most deeply, a commitment to a shared imaginary — pan-European, transatlantic, Western in the best sense of the term — which is why we have placed this initiative under the patronage of Benjamin Franklin: politician, scientist, inventor, and a true embodiment of the Scottish Enlightenment spirit.
Behind this lies a set of values. Hospitality, because science knows no borders and researchers must be free to choose where they can flourish. Rigor, because only through long-term, structurally anchored investment can excellence emerge. Partnership, because public and private actors must work together to maintain knowledge as a common good. And excellence, not as a slogan, but as a practice rooted in freedom, pluralism and merit.
The Benjamin Franklin Fund illustrates what a “fund-of-funds” model could look like if applied with ambition: an initiative that integrates budgetary clarity, operational simplicity and strategic focus. There could be many such funds. For green sovereignty. For industrial transformation. For digital infrastructure. For defence capability. What matters is that the next MFF marks a transition from a logic of fragmented allocations to a logic of shared missions—supported by flexible instruments and long-term planning.
In this ecosystem, we propose to sanctuarise one mission: Europe as a global hub of research. Not only as a space where talent is hosted, but as a space where the very profession of researcher is elevated—socially, financially, and symbolically—as a vocation contributing to both personal fulfilment and collective progress.
This requires, yes, money. But more than that, it requires clarity of purpose. It requires a political choice to make scientific freedom, academic cooperation and research excellence not only instruments of innovation, but pillars of sovereignty. It requires a Europe that is not merely a funding provider, but a strategic partner, able to enter into long-term research alliances: between Member States, and with like-minded partners—especially the United States. These partnerships could be enhanced by American philanthropic foundations, co-structured through the financial engineering of European institutions, designed as transatlantic platforms for research investment under European values and governance.
The possibilities are vast. But the window for shaping the next MFF is narrow. The moment to anticipate the next round of budgetary choices—with institutional creativity, political resolve, and intellectual ambition—is now.
We propose, therefore, to begin with one compartment: a Research Sovereignty Pole.
Others will follow. But this one must come first.
