Italia is moving forward at a slow pace in EU research calls

For a country such as Italia, which, except for the Pnrr, historically invests little in R&S, European funds are too good an opportunity for redemption to be wasted. Therefore, the alarm bells that come from the statistics (as of October 2025) on the use of EU research programming contained in the latest Anvur report on higher education should not be underestimated. Despite a slight improvement in our success rates in competitive calls for proposals, coinciding with the transition from the old Horizon 2020 cycle of 67 billion to the new Horizon Europe cycle of 95.5 billion, we continue to lose ground not only to the 'locomotives' Germany and France, but also to Spain and the Netherlands, which have exploited the Brexit factor better than we have. While we remain fifth in terms of resources received, as at the end of the last seven-year period, we have so far not taken advantage of the UK's exit from the game (second with H2020) as we have been overtaken by the Dutch in the meantime.

The result in financial terms is emblematic. We still do not return even three quarters of the investment devolved to the overall EU budget: out of the 44 billion distributed so far, the revenue stops at 4.1 billion compared to the 5.7 billion we would bring home if we were able to collect in proportion to what we spend. The potential loss is 1.6 billion. According to Anvur, "the analysis of the Horizon 2020 and Horizon Europe programmes returns for Italia a picture characterised by high participation, but by a financial return that is structurally lower than expected and lower than the main European partners".

The numbers say so. As was the case in the days of H2020, even now that HE reigns, we contribute just over 12% of the total budget but collect around 9% (in the previous cycle we were at 9.2% of the resources obtained while now we are at 9.4% as the graph on the page shows, while the Netherlands rises from 8.8% to 9.5% and Spain consolidates from 10.4% to 11.6%). Our ratio of granted funding to theoretical funding on the basis of budget contribution stops at 0.73 (with H2o20 we were at 0.75), like Germany (0.73), which however in absolute value is at 7.6 billion. In essence, we do better than France, which stops at 0.66, but worse than Spain (1.29) and the Netherlands (2.01).

Then there is the issue of territorial gaps that complicates the scenario. In both framework programmes, more than 90% of the resources are concentrated in three areas: North-West, North-East and Centre. With a reversal at the top that now sees the North-West in the lead (with 1.4 billion collected, or 35.3%) and the Centre dropping to second place with 32.9% (1.3 billion). Still in third place is the North-East, which goes from 20.9 per cent with Horizon 2020 to 22.3 per cent, and pulls even further ahead of the South: the South and the Islands together, which were at 9.4 per cent with H2020 are now at 9.5 per cent. The demographic and presence weight of higher education and research institutions is about one third of the entire country.

Returning to the general picture, Italy's positioning in the European Research Council (ERC) competitive calls for proposals appears particularly critical, again according to the Evaluation Agency, "where Italia's success rate remains the lowest among the main European countries, with a gap that is confirmed in all grant types and in all scientific domains". The improvements in all four types of grants - from 7.4 to 9.6% in Starting Grants for up-and-coming researchers, from 8.1% to 9.6% in Consolidator Grants for scholars with 7 to 12 years of work, from 5.8 to 7.7% in Advanced Grants for established scientists, and from 2.1% to 4.3% in Synergy Grants for complex research groups - remain well below the overall success rate (11.1, 13.8, 12 and 9.8% respectively). So much so that we remain far behind our main EU competitors. A gap that must sound as a general warning to do more and better, on the eve of the end of the NRP. With its 11 billion for universities and research, the Recovery represented a probably unrepeatable unicum.