Widening needs a more precise diagnosis, not more boxes

Widening is a priority of Horizon Europe that helps research institutions in countries with lower research and innovation performance gain experience in preparing and managing international projects, build their own research teams and establish cooperation with leading European institutions. The funding secured under the Widening priority to date and the participation of institutions in projects funded from its budget show that Widening instruments play a significant role in a number of countries. These indicators alone, however, do not tell us whether the support provided through these instruments actually leads to a long-term strengthening of the research and innovation capacity of the institutions supported.

For the future design of the priority, the key question will therefore be not only who receives financial support and which barriers it helps to remove, but also what lasting change it brings about in the institutions supported.

Widening - a marginal priority, or a gateway to international research?

The basic rationale of Widening is straightforward: to help countries with lower research and innovation performance participate more effectively in European research. This may mean a Slovak university bringing in a partner from Germany, a Croatian institute recruiting an experienced researcher, or a smaller Czech faculty preparing an international project that would otherwise be difficult to undertake. This sounds useful, but perhaps like a relatively marginal part of the Framework Programme.

The future place of Widening within the European research funding landscape is not yet definitively clear. In its position on FP10, for example, Denmark proposed that research and innovation capacity building should be addressed through a separate EU instrument, while the principle of excellence should be preserved in the Framework Programme [1].

For many Widening countries, however, Widening is certainly not a marginal part of their participation in Horizon Europe. In Slovakia, it accounts for around 25% of the net EU contribution the country receives from Horizon Europe, in Latvia almost 29%, and in Croatia 22% [2]. In other countries, it carries less weight but remains significant. Differences also exist within individual countries.

Fifteen EU Member States are currently classified as Widening countries. In its proposal for the next Framework Programme, the European Commission plans to divide them into two groups [3]. The real issue in the FP10 debate is therefore not simply whether Widening should continue, but how it should be designed so that different countries can address different barriers. Are two categories enough? Would more groups make sense? Or should eligibility shift from countries to individual institutions? And how should we deal with the paradox that support is easiest to access for those that already have experience, partners and administrative capacity?

One label, but many different stories

An analysis of convergence published in October 2025 showed that there is no single pathway through which countries with lower research and innovation performance strengthen their participation in the Framework Programmes [4]. Based on changes between Horizon 2020 and Horizon Europe, it identified three country profiles according to which parts of the programme contributed most to the growth in their participation. In Croatia and Slovakia, Widening itself is the main driver of this growth. Czechia, Estonia, Slovenia and Poland have strengthened their position mainly through instruments supporting scientific excellence and human capital, namely the ERC and MSCA. Bulgaria, Cyprus and Hungary have grown more through the thematic pillars, often from a low starting point and more frequently as partners than as coordinators. This is not a ranking of better and worse performers. It describes different mechanisms through which countries' participation in the Framework Programme is moving closer to the European average. These differences also suggest that countries may need different types of support to strengthen their participation further.

An analysis from April 2026 looked at differences between Widening countries from another angle: it examined the volume of Widening funding received, the weight of this funding in each country's overall Horizon Europe participation, and compared actual results with a benchmark derived from the country's research capacity and innovation performance [5]. On this basis, it identified several groups of Widening countries. In some countries, Widening is a key component of Horizon Europe participation. Others have a broad portfolio across the programme, with Widening representing an important but not decisive source of funding. Another group consists of smaller countries that receive relatively high Widening funding in relation to their research and innovation capacity. At the other end are countries whose Widening funding falls below the level that the benchmark model would suggest on the basis of their research capacity and innovation performance [6].

These analytically derived groups are not a proposal for creating additional funding regimes. Their main message is that Widening countries do not share the same starting conditions or the same needs. More detailed differentiation does not have to mean more administrative categories. A typology can serve as a compass for choosing appropriate support instruments, rather than as another box to tick on a form. The crucial point is not to conflate three different things: the need for support, the ability to secure it, and the outcome that support is intended to achieve.

Fifteen countries, two boxes

The Commission's July 2025 proposal responds to differences among Widening countries by dividing the current fifteen Member States into two groups [3]. Nine countries - Bulgaria, Czechia, Croatia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania and Slovakia - would remain in the Widening category. Six - Estonia, Cyprus, Malta, Portugal, Greece and Slovenia - would move into a new Transition category.

The distinction has practical consequences: countries in the Widening category would retain access to capacity-building instruments, while the offer for Transition countries would be narrower and focused on cooperation, knowledge valorisation and reducing brain drain.

According to recital 20, the boundary between the two categories would be determined by a combination of two indicators: innovation performance above 75% of the EU average over 2023-2025 and a positive relative financial return from the Framework Programme in relation to gross national income over 2021-2025. The classification is expected to remain fixed for the entire 2028-2034 period [3].

Dividing Widening countries into two categories acknowledges their different starting positions. The question, however, is whether two categories based on two aggregate indicators adequately capture the differences that Widening is meant to address. A high financial return may reflect a strong institutional base, but it may also be driven by a small number of exceptionally successful beneficiaries. Conversely, a low return does not necessarily mean that a country needs less support; it may be evidence of the very barriers that prevent its institutions from competing successfully for European funding. And assigning a country to one category for the entire seven-year period makes it difficult to reflect any change in its research and innovation performance during the programme.

The STOA study: an X-ray of Widening countries' innovation capacity

The study by Reinhilde Veugelers for the European Parliament's STOA Panel goes considerably further in differentiating between Widening countries [7]. Rather than looking only at their participation in Horizon Europe, it assesses the broader potential of their research and innovation systems. It considers absorptive capacity, access to science and technology, research system quality, business innovation, linkages between actors, finance, intellectual property and impacts. On this basis, it divides countries into five categories according to their potential innovation capacity (PIC). The issue, then, is not simply how much funding a country receives from the programme, but also the conditions that shape its ability to develop research and innovation capacity.

A key point for this debate is that the study distinguishes between proposal success rates and application intensity. Success rates vary only slightly among Widening countries, with a coefficient of variation of 0.068. Differences are much greater in application intensity (0.842) and in the amount of funding received relative to domestic R&D expenditure. Differences in Widening countries' participation therefore cannot be explained solely by differences in proposal success rates. The domestic research and innovation environment and countries' ability to generate a sufficiently broad pipeline of proposals also play an important role [7].

This distinction matters. If a country submits few proposals, a low number of grants cannot be interpreted in the same way as in a country that submits many proposals but has a low success rate. And if the barrier is a weaker research system, insufficient links between its actors or limited access to finance, simply increasing the budgets of European calls will not remove those barriers.

Access to finance remains a particularly persistent barrier. In the dimension covering public R&D expenditure, venture capital, and direct and tax-based support for business R&D, the study finds no beta-convergence between 2018 and 2025 - in other words, countries starting from lower levels did not grow faster and gradually catch up with stronger performers. Instead, differences within the group of Widening countries increased [7]. European instruments can help build capacity, but they cannot substitute for domestic investment in the long term.

The study therefore presents three options for the future approach to Widening. Two allow for the gradual phasing out of the highest-rated countries - Estonia, Slovenia, Portugal and Czechia, which the study places in the highest PIC 5 category - provided that they sustain their growth trajectory and address their remaining weaknesses [7]. The third option retains the current group of Widening countries but recommends tailoring instruments to the specific bottlenecks faced by individual countries in their research and innovation systems. All three options share the same core idea: support should respond not only to a country's overall level of participation in the programme, but above all to the specific weaknesses that constrain the development of its research and innovation capacity [7].

This does not mean that FP10 should create fifteen different programmes. But it does highlight the limitations of simply dividing countries into two categories: Widening countries differ not only in their level of research and innovation performance, but also in the nature of the barriers holding back their further development. A category should therefore help determine what type of support a country needs, rather than becoming an end in itself.

The Widening paradox: stronger players are better placed to use the support

Widening instruments are intended to strengthen the research and innovation potential of countries with lower research and innovation performance. Yet using them successfully already requires a basic level of institutional and project capacity: institutions need to find strong international partners, prepare a competitive proposal, ensure effective project management and, for some instruments, secure national co-funding.

The data confirm this paradox. According to the STOA study, countries with a higher PIC have, on average, higher application intensity and receive more support relative to domestic R&D expenditure, while Romania, Poland and Hungary combine the lowest application rates with the lowest success rates [7]. A structural analysis of the distribution of Widening funding shows the same problem from another perspective - the concentration of financial support. Portugal (€254.6 million), Greece (€223.1 million), Poland (€128.8 million) and Czechia (€111.8 million) together receive approximately 58% of the net EU contribution allocated to the fifteen Widening Member States [2]. More than half of this funding therefore goes to four of the fifteen Widening Member States.

The concentration of funding in a smaller number of countries is not in itself evidence that the funding is poorly allocated. Stronger teams may use these resources effectively to build research capacity and strengthen the wider research and innovation environment. However, a benchmark comparison of countries' actual and expected shares of Widening funding shows that there can be substantial differences between actual funding and the level corresponding to their research capacity and need for support. The outcome depends on success in competing for project funding as well as on the institutional preconditions for participating in Widening calls. Poland illustrates this particularly clearly: the benchmark, which combines the size of its research capacity with its need for support, assigns it an expected share of almost 20% of the funding going to the fifteen Widening Member States, while current data show an actual share of 10.3% [5][2]. Poland is therefore among the countries receiving the largest absolute volume of funding, yet its actual share remains substantially below the benchmark value.

Czechia illustrates this tension well. In Widening, it is one of the more financially successful countries: according to current data, Czech institutions have received €111.8 million, and Czechia's share of the funding going to the fifteen Widening Member States is higher than the benchmark based on its research capacity and innovation performance would suggest [2][5]. At the same time, Czechia has below-average application intensity, despite an above-average success rate [7]. The Czech example therefore shows that, alongside the volume of funding secured, it is also important to consider how actively institutions participate in competition for European funding.

This is not an abstract problem, as this year's Teaming for Excellence call demonstrated. Sixty-four proposals advanced to the second stage, 61 were evaluated and 19 were selected for funding, with a total EU contribution of almost €270 million. Portugal succeeded with six projects worth approximately €81 million in total, around 30% of the call budget, while none of the six Czech proposals was funded. For the Czech proposals, one of the issues was demonstrating national co-funding, on which the European Commission and the Czech Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports took different views [8]. The Czech case thus shows that, for an instrument linking European and domestic resources, success depends not only on the quality of the proposal but also on the ability to secure and credibly demonstrate the required co-funding.

Should Widening target countries or institutions?

In searching for a better way to define Widening beneficiaries, an apparently simple solution suggests itself: stop determining eligibility for Widening instruments at country level and assess it at the level of individual institutions. A research-intensive university in a Widening country would then not have access to these instruments, while an institution with lower research and innovation capacity in a non-Widening country could use them.

Such a solution is not particularly convincing. Widening was not created as a support programme for individual organisations, but as a response to structural differences between national research and innovation systems. Most of the barriers identified by the STOA study - public and private funding, the quality of the research and innovation system, mobility, links with business, or the capacity to absorb technologies - lie above the level of a single university or research institute [7]. Shifting eligibility from countries to individual institutions could therefore weaken precisely the systemic dimension of Widening.

Nor is it clear how a 'Widening institution' would be defined. By budget, publication performance, number of ERC grants, success in the Framework Programme, region or even individual faculties? A large university may include both internationally leading departments and teams that are only beginning to build capacity for international cooperation. Institution-level eligibility could therefore be just as crude as country-level eligibility, only moved one level down.

It makes more sense to retain the national level as the basic framework for eligibility for Widening instruments, while distinguishing much more precisely between the purpose of individual instruments and their target beneficiaries. A country's inclusion among Widening beneficiaries should be based on the existence of structural barriers that justify this type of support. Specific instruments and projects should then target those barriers according to their nature and according to which institutions are actually capable of addressing them.

Different barriers, different instruments

Differences in the barriers faced by Widening countries' research and innovation systems are also reflected in which instruments are appropriate for addressing them. An analysis of 1,310 eligible Twinning proposals from the 2021 and 2023 calls, for example, found that a higher share of partners from Widening countries was associated with a lower probability of proposals being funded [9]. This does not mean that involving additional partners from Widening countries in itself reduces proposal quality or the chance of success. It is a statistical association, not a demonstrated causal relationship, and the model does not capture the scientific quality of the proposal or the actual contribution of individual partners. Rather, the result suggests that broader participation by organisations cannot in itself be treated as a measure of successful widening of participation. Twinning is primarily intended to strengthen the coordinating institution through a targeted partnership, not to involve the largest possible number of partner organisations.

Individual Widening instruments pursue different objectives. Teaming builds centres of excellence and requires links to domestic investment; Excellence Hubs work with regional innovation ecosystems; and ERA Chairs focus on recruiting an experienced researcher and transforming the institutional environment. Their contribution therefore needs to be assessed in terms of the barrier they are intended to address and the change they are expected to bring about in supported institutions or research and innovation systems. This creates a difficult tension for the future design of Widening: Widening instruments should respond to structural problems in Widening countries, but their use is determined by individual institutions through whether they apply and which projects they submit. Their needs, priorities and ability to prepare a competitive proposal may not coincide with the main weaknesses of the country's research and innovation system. There is no easy universal solution. Further dividing countries into categories will not solve this problem by itself; the key will be to design instruments that better connect countries' systemic needs with the needs and capacities of the institutions that actually apply for support.

Conditionality: the right principle, but how should it be measured?

The European Commission's proposal for Horizon Europe for 2028-2034 introduces an additional condition from 2030. Access to measures aimed at building research and innovation capacity under Widening would be limited to Widening countries that, in the latest year for which data are available, increased real public R&D expenditure compared with the previous year [3]. Access to this part of Widening would thus be linked to whether the Member State is simultaneously increasing its own public investment in R&D.

The principle that European support should not replace Member States' responsibility for their own research and innovation systems is difficult to dispute and is also emphasised by the STOA study [7]. A similar argument has been made by Lithuania: European support should be accompanied by national investment in R&D [10]. More contentious is how this responsibility should be translated into a specific condition for access to Widening instruments. Concerns have also been raised by the university sector. Joint amendments proposed in December 2025 by CESAER, the Coimbra Group, EUA, EU-LIFE, The Guild, LERU and YERUN stress the need for conditionality to be designed in a way that does not disproportionately penalise beneficiaries for decisions beyond their control [11]. The Guild subsequently called for the conditionality to be clarified and for the indicators used to define Widening and Transition countries to be improved [12].

Some caution is nevertheless warranted regarding the conditionality itself. Widening is intended to help reduce structural differences in the performance of research and innovation systems, which cannot be reduced to whether a government increases public R&D expenditure from one year to the next. Moreover, the consequences of failing to meet the condition would be borne by research institutions that do not determine the size of the national budget. If the conditionality remains in the final text, however, the way expenditure growth is measured will also matter. Nominal growth would be a simpler and more predictable condition than real growth: a country may increase its R&D budget in nominal terms but, in a period of higher inflation, still fail to meet a real-growth requirement.

The issue, then, is not only the choice between real and nominal growth, but the design of the conditionality itself. A single year-on-year comparison of public expenditure may be overly sensitive to the budget cycle, inflation, exceptional investments or their timing, and may fail to capture the long-term development of the research and innovation system. This creates a tension similar to that found in Widening more generally: the condition relates to decisions taken by the state, but its consequences fall on institutions that cannot directly influence those decisions. EUA explicitly highlights this problem in its analysis of the FP10 proposal [13].

If conditionality remains in the final text, a more convincing approach would be to assess a multiannual trend in public R&D expenditure, possibly combined with other indicators of structural change, while setting the rules in advance and making them sufficiently predictable. The issue is not simply whether a country spent more in one year than in the previous year, but whether it is creating long-term conditions that allow capacities built through Widening to function even without Widening support.

Widening as an engine, not an end in itself

In my analysis of convergence among the EU-13 countries, I compared Widening to an engine. It is one of the instruments that have contributed significantly to the growth of their participation in the Framework Programme, but it cannot deliver long-term convergence on its own. The analysis also shows that the growing importance of Widening in these countries' participation cannot automatically be treated as evidence that they are catching up with stronger-performing countries more quickly. Funding received by the EU-13 countries is increasing, but more slowly than the overall volume of Widening funding [4].

What matters more, therefore, is what Widening delivers over the longer term. Its contribution does not end when a grant is awarded. The key question is whether an institution retains a high-quality team and the partnerships it has built, takes on a more demanding role in international projects, and gradually strengthens its participation in the open, competitive parts of the programme, where the EU-13 countries still lag behind [4]. For one institution, progress may mean its first major international project; for another, taking on coordination or retaining a team after the support ends. The success of Widening should therefore be measured not only by the volume of funding secured, but also by whether it creates the conditions for success beyond Widening itself.

What should Widening actually change?

The future of Widening does not need an ever more detailed list of winners and losers; it needs a more precise diagnosis. The analyses identify several different pathways to convergence; the Commission recognises that a single group of countries is no longer sufficient; and the STOA study shows that Widening countries differ not only in their level of participation in the Framework Programme, but also in their research and innovation capacity and in the nature of the barriers constraining its development. Experience with today's instruments adds a paradox that cannot be ignored: the weaker the research system, the greater the potential need for support - and, at the same time, the lower the capacity to compete successfully for it. The ability to secure support is therefore not the same as the need for it. A low level of funding received does not necessarily mean that a country needs less support; it may instead be a manifestation of the barriers that Widening is intended to help overcome.

The Czech national position on FP10 from December 2024 supports retaining Widening based on individual countries' eligibility to use its instruments and continuing established instruments such as Twinning, Teaming and ERA Chairs [14]. It also stresses that building research and innovation capacity should help institutions and researchers strengthen their ability to participate across the Framework Programme and take on more substantial roles in projects. The purpose of support should therefore not be for institutions to remain active only within Widening instruments over the long term, but to progressively create the conditions for broader participation in open competition. This provides a sound basis for the future design of Widening as well. Yet a country's inclusion among Widening beneficiaries does not mean that all Widening countries face the same problems or need the same type of support.

Countries' inclusion in Widening should therefore not be immutable. If a country's research and innovation system gradually moves closer to the European average and some of the barriers that justified support begin to recede, the nature of the support should adapt accordingly. Greater emphasis can then be placed on instruments focused on cooperation, mobility or knowledge valorisation. Conversely, in countries where more substantial structural barriers persist, support should focus more strongly on removing them and strengthening institutions' ability to participate in European research. Widening therefore also needs an exit logic: as barriers are progressively removed, the type of support needed by a country and its institutions should change as well.

In a few weeks, we will meet in Prague for the CZEDER conference, which this year will focus on how European research should be funded after 2027 and will include a dedicated session on Widening [15]. The session will feature institutions' experiences with Teaming, ERA Chairs and Excellence Hubs and the impact of these instruments on the organisations involved. These experiences can reveal what the data alone cannot. Statistics show who received support and how much, but not what actually changed within institutions as a result or whether that change persisted after the project ended. The discussion should therefore not stop at statistics and examples of good practice; it should also address the long-term contribution of Widening: what remains within institutions after a project ends, and whether they can use the experience, partnerships and capacities they have gained in other parts of the Framework Programme and for broader participation in European research.

The purpose of Widening should therefore not be to keep countries and their institutions dependent on its support, but gradually to create the conditions for them to need it less and less.

Author: Daniel Frank, Technology Centre Prague, frank@tc.cz, 22/09/2026

The text reflects the views and opinions of the author, not those of the employer. Publication or dissemination of this article (blog) or any part thereof, including its appendices, in any form and in Czech or any other language is permitted only with proper attribution of the source and the author in accordance with standard citation practices. Any modifications or adaptations of the article (other than purely formal edits) require the author’s consent. The text has not undergone language editing.

References:

[1] Ministry of Higher Education and Science Denmark: Danish Position Paper on the future EU Framework Programme for research and innovation (FP10), 2024. https://www.horizontevropa.cz/files_public/elfinder/5463/Danish_Position_Paper_on_the_Future_EU_Framework_Programme_for_research_and_in_pt5TA9H.pdf

[2] European Commission: eCORDA grant data, updated 18 August 2026; author's calculations based on relevant records (Relevant = Y), Widening and overall Horizon Europe participation.

[3] European Commission: Proposal for a Regulation establishing Horizon Europe for the period 2028-2034, COM(2025) 543 final, 16 July 2025 (in particular recital 20 and Article 19). https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:52025PC0543https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:52025PC0543

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[11] CESAER, Coimbra Group, EUA, EU-LIFE, The Guild, LERU, YERUN: Proposed joint amendments to the FP10 legal texts, 1 December 2025. https://www.eua.eu/images/news/EUA_news/Joint_Amendments_FP10_01.12.2025.pdf 

[12] The Guild: What is the vision for Widening Participation and Spreading Excellence in FP10? May 2026. https://era.gv.at/news-items/the-guild-publishes-its-vision-of-widening-participation-and-spreading-excellence-in-fp10/https://era.gv.at/news-items/the-guild-publishes-its-vision-of-widening-participation-and-spreading-excellence-in-fp10/

[13] European University Association (EUA): Horizon Europe 2028-2034 - EUA analysis of the European Commission's proposal, 29 September 2025. https://eua.eu/publications/policy-input/horizon-europe-2028-2034.html

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[15] CZEDER 2026: conference focus and programme. https://www.horizontevropa.cz/cs/kalendar/yiifcalendarevent/1578/czeder-2026