No Culture on the Horizon? The Uncertain Future of EU Support for Culture Research
As the EU negotiates its next long-term budget (Multiannual Financial Framework 2028–2034), the future of culture-related research and innovation is at risk. Horizon Europe’s dedicated space for culture research — Cluster 2: Culture, Creativity and Inclusive Society — has proven its value and its demand, yet the Commission’s proposal for the next Horizon Europe Programme no longer includes culture as a distinct area of support.
This matters because Horizon Europe is the EU’s key research and innovation programme. In the current budget cycle 2021–2027, its funding amounts to €93.5 billion following the midterm review. Within it, Cluster 2 supports research on democracy, cultural heritage and the cultural and creative sectors with an overall budget of about €2.28 billion across seven years. For comparison, Creative Europe, the EU’s flagship programme for culture and media, has a budget of €2.44 billion for 2021–2027.
What has changed now?
On 16 July 2025, the European Commission proposed the next Horizon Europe Framework Programme for 2028–2034 with a €175 billion budget. Among other actions, the programme will support research across four components: 1) Clean Transition and Industrial Decarbonisation; 2) Health, Biotech, Agriculture and Bioeconomy; 3) Digital Leadership; 4) Resilience and Security, Defence Industry and Space. These components also correspond to the policy windows of the European Competitiveness Fund, of which Horizon Europe is part.
In this architecture, culture is no longer visible as a named, dedicated component. Instead, the Commission’s proposal mentioned ‘culture and creativity’ only once, as a societal challenge to be addressed through collaborative research in Horizon Europe. It also emphasises the integration of social sciences and humanities (SSH) as a horizontal principle ‘across all components’, but all without an explicit cultural pillar comparable to today’s Cluster 2.
Why the EU should support culture and artistic research
Demand for Horizon Europe’s culture calls is exceptionally high. The 2025 call for ‘Culture, creativity and inclusive society’ alone attracted 1331 proposals, which represents an 80% increase in applications compared to 2024 and nearly 250% more than in 2021.
Even in narrow economic terms, every euro invested by the EU in the creative and cultural sector could potentially generate a return of up to €11 of GDP. Sidelining culture-related research and innovation makes Europe’s competitiveness strategy weaker, not stronger.
But the case for culture-related research goes far beyond economic impact. The EU is facing crises that are deeply social, cultural, and ethical in nature. These challenges cannot be solved by technical solutions alone. Addressing them requires a genuine understanding of how people make sense of the world, how values shape their decisions, and how communities form and function.
Artistic research plays a particular role here. It creates a space where democratic values are put into practice and tested and allows communities to engage with one another by openly exploring difficult issues — be it authoritarianism, polarisation, or historical injustice — through shared, participatory processes.
The ability to bring together critical reflection and lived, participatory experience is a distinctive strength of artistic research. This is why it requires dedicated support that is tailored to its specific methods and forms of impact.
How do other EU institutions feel about culture research in the next Horizon Europe?
The Horizon Europe Programme is shaped by two legal acts: the Framework Programme Regulation and the Specific Programme Council Decision. The former is strategic and overarching, the latter is more operational. The Council of the EU, representing Member State governments, has been working on both drafts. It attempted to restore explicit language in the Specific Programme Council Decision: the Society component of Horizon Europe is described as including ‘sustaining European cultures and creative industries’ in the progress report and one of the compromise texts.
However, it does not yet solve the core issue. Culture remains absent from the overarching Framework Programme Regulation, where the programme’s strategic direction is set. To date, the Council has not reintroduced any explicit reference to culture in that overarching text.
As Council negotiations continue, the European Parliament now has a decisive role to play. The window for parliamentary action is open now. Christian Ehler (EPP, DE) from the ITRE Committee (Industry, Research and Energy) has been appointed rapporteur for Parliament’s report on Horizon Europe and will draft what is set to become Parliament’s position on the next EU research and innovation programme.
In parallel, the CULT Committee (Culture and Education) is preparing an opinion to feed into ITRE’s report, with Laurence Farreng (Renew, FR) as rapporteur. Her draft opinion is available here; amendments are due by 29 January 2026.
What Culture Action Europe is doing
Culture Action Europe has submitted proposals for amendments to CULT’s opinion report on Horizon Europe. We called to explicitly include culture and the cultural and creative sectors in the Horizon Europe Framework Programme, under the Society pillar, with a dedicated allocation of €3 billion for culture-related research and innovation. We encourage other cultural networks to reach out with the same request to MEP Laurence Farreng and MEP Christian Ehler, as well as to shadow rapporteurs working on ITRE’s Horizon Europe report (information available here).
At the same time, we are calling on the Council of the EU, under the leadership of the Cyprus Presidency, to ensure culture is explicitly included not only in the Specific Programme, but also in the Framework Programme Regulation, so that Horizon Europe’s core architecture does not erase culture.
Image credit: Pablo Stanley