More EU funds allocated to the educational sector

The European Parliament and EU Council have come to an agreement on the EU’s long-term budget, a financial framework that this time has been challenging to agree on due to the pandemic, the recovery plan is to help to rebuild the post-pandemic Europe.

The final agreement is a result of continued efforts by the European Parliament to reinforce future-oriented programmes with 30% of the EU funds dedicated to fighting climate change and building more greener Europe and strengthen EU’s health system by building European Health Union and supporting programmes like Horizon Europe, amongst others.

Horizon Europe (set to receive 84,9bn Euros) is the biggest EU Research and Innovation programme. For the educational sector, the greater investment in Research & Innovation at European level is welcomed together with an increased budget of 23,4bn Euros to be received for Erasmus+.

An educational organization – European University Association has continuously supported the European Parliament’s actions and campaigned with its members to make a case for investing more in research and education and the respective programmes. The financial support is necessary to solve the current challenges in education and its innovation as well as support long-run programmes like Erasmus+, which needs additional funding for newly assigned and diverse missions.

It is crucial that from these immense challenges to learn new synergies that can be achieved through the member states and public authorities in order to align their investment efforts. Essentially, the right decisions will need to be made when allocating funds within Horizon Europe.

EUA commitment is to continue communication of the added value of EU investment in research and innovation and to work together with the EU institutions to ensure funding is used in the best possible way.