Culture gains a stronger name and place in the European Parliament’s Horizon Europe compromise

Culture Action Europe is proud to be part of the Name Place Fund coalition, which brings together culture and research organisations advocating for stronger support for culture in Horizon Europe and the European Competitiveness Fund. We welcome the cross-party compromise text on Horizon Europe 2028-2034 negotiated in the European Parliament. 

It was prepared by rapporteurs Christian Ehler (EPP) and René Repasi (S&D) together with the shadow rapporteurs. The compromise is scheduled for a vote in Parliament’s Industry, Research and Energy (ITRE) Committee on 10 November. This text will be the starting point for the Parliament’s negotiations with the Commission and the Council. 

After long negotiations, culture, creativity and artistic research finally have a more prominent place in the future EU research and innovation programme.

The text strengthens culture’s position compared with the Commission’s proposal and Council’s partial general approach. In particular, the compromise gives culture explicit places in two parts of the programme:

• Under Society Window II ‘Sustainable, Inclusive and Healthy Societies’ (€3 billion), a dedicated area of activity ‘Culture, Cultural Heritage, including the Cultural Heritage Cloud and Creative Sectors’ recognises the importance of cultural research, heritage preservation, cultural diversity, social cohesion and the contribution of culture to European society. 
• Under Competitiveness Window II ‘Biotechnology, Agriculture, Health, and Sustainable Transition’ (€21 billion), ‘Cultural and Creative Industries’ are acknowledged as a key area where research and innovation contributes to Europe’s competitiveness, with explicit recognition of the role of artistic research and creative and design methods. The collaboration with other sectors is defined as crucial to find ‘new types of innovation’ while protecting cultural diversity. The focus is on job stability, intellectual property, authorship, licensing and fair remuneration in the digital environment, including in the context of generative AI.
• Culture is also present under the Society Window III ‘Inclusive digital societies’: in ‘Societal impacts of Artificial Intelligence,’ activities may address the impact of artificial intelligence on creative work and cultural diversity.

We welcome this nuanced understanding, which reflects the diversity of cultural work and practice. Culture and creativity contribute to Europe’s economic competitiveness and technological development, but their value goes well beyond the market. Recognising these different roles means supporting culture not only for its economic and technological contributions, but also for its value to society and in its own right.

In terms of funding, the Society Window II would amount to €3 billion, while the current Horizon’s Cluster 2 ‘Culture, Creativity and Inclusive Society’ has a budget of €2.28 billion. This increase is to be seen in perspective: in the Parliament’s compromise, cultural sectors share this budget with other seven areas of activity, from healthcare and demographic transformations to communities and cities. The text does not earmark funding for culture.  

A significant improvement is the extension of social sciences and humanities (SSH) to social sciences, humanities and the arts (SSHA). Article 5 now recognises their integration across all components of Horizon Europe as a horizontal principle. It also provides for dedicated calls addressing SSHA and the cultural and creative industries. Together with the specific cultural areas within Pillar II, this proposal reflects the dual role of arts and culture: as contributors to research and innovation across disciplines, and as fields of research and innovation in their own right, requiring dedicated support. Support for strengthening SSHA and cultural heritage research infrastructures is also included in the programme, a very good sign for arts and culture education and research institutions. 

We also support the proposed changes to the programme’s governance. The new High-Level Council for collaborative research and innovation would bring together independent experts from different disciplines, explicitly including SSHA expertise and civil society. The requirement for Lead Experts to consult relevant stakeholders when developing calls creates further opportunities for cultural organisations and artistic researchers to help shape research priorities. These opportunities must translate into genuine participation in practice.

The Name Place Fund coalition welcomes the proposed pilot initiative for an SSHA Sectoral Plan. The compromise text notes that the proposal addresses the lack of coordination across the SSHA research landscape and the need for a long-term shared strategic research agenda at European level. A pilot initiative would map existing capacities, connect stakeholders and develop a common agenda for future cooperation. A full Sectoral Plan could follow a positive independent evaluation, enabling research institutions to jointly define bottom-up priorities for the sector as a whole, building on complementary strengths to foster excellent, long-term cross-border collaboration.  

Culture has gained a strong PLACING across the programme, and an improved NAMING. FUNDING must follow. The improvements achieved in the compromise must not be undermined by cuts to the EU budget. The Name Place Fund coalition is deeply concerned and disappointed by the Irish Presidency’s proposal to cut Horizon Europe’s budget by nearly 10% and the core European Competitiveness Fund envelope by around 13% compared with the Commission’s proposal. Together with the proposed 30% cut to AgoraEU, these reductions would seriously weaken Europe’s support for culture, creativity, research and innovation.

We therefore call on:

• Members of the European Parliament to support the compromise at the ITRE vote on 10 November 2026 and the subsequent plenary vote, to defend the provisions listed above throughout trilogues and to mirror them in the compromise on the European Competitiveness Fund regulation;
• Council and European Commission to preserve and strengthen the improvements achieved in the Parliament’s compromise in the final Horizon Europe Framework Programme and Specific Programme regulations, and where possible further strengthen the ‘naming’ and ‘funding’ of culture;
• EU Member States to reverse the proposed cuts to Horizon Europe and the European Competitiveness Fund and provide sufficient resources to match Europe’s ambitions for research, innovation and culture;
• European Council President António Costa, as he prepares the next MFF negotiating box, to safeguard and strengthen investment in research and innovation. We support the compromise’s proposed €200 billion Horizon Europe budget and call for dedicated funding for culture and artistic research within the programme. 

The Name Place Fund coalition thanks all the organisations that have joined the campaign, shared evidence of the importance of culture in Horizon Europe and amplified our message. Your active participation has helped bring culture back on the horizon. Stay engaged — more to come!

The #NamePlaceFund campaign is led by the Artistic Research Alliance (AEC, CILECT, Culture Action Europe, EAAE, ELIA, EQ-Arts, GEECT, MusiQuE, SAR) and MCA.