European scientists face uncertainty as pandemic recovery fund winds down

From ScienceMag:

Researchers funded through the European Union’s pandemic recovery package are facing an uncertain future as the program comes to an end.

Over the past 5 years, the EU has awarded billions of euros in grants and loans to national governments across the bloc to stimulate economies following the pandemic slump. A sizable chunk of that money has gone to funding scientific infrastructure and research positions. Now, with final payments due by the end of the year, questions are mounting over how countries will retain the researchers needed to sustain those investments.

“Member states need to take national responsibility at their own level, rather than counting on another major injection of EU money,” says Robert-Jan Smits, former head of research and innovation at the European Commission. But with governments facing sluggish economic growth, mounting defense costs, and pressure on public finances, he worries it will be difficult for them to maintain spending on research.

Established in 2021, the EU’s Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF) was designed to revive economies battered by the COVID-19 pandemic and increase future resilience by funding clean energy, digital technology, and other initiatives. National governments had to submit project plans to the EU and could request payment upon reaching specific milestones. The program’s €577 billion budget included €55.6 billion for research and innovation, which has helped pay for everything from mapping underwater seagrass meadows along Italy’s coastline to developing quantum technology in the Netherlands.

Other EU funds, including the Social Climate Fund, will likely ensure some initiatives launched with RRF money will live on. But EU member states are supposed to do their part, too, and researchers in some countries say their governments have not done enough to ensure their work can continue.

In Italy, one of those affected is materials chemist Ivana Di Bari of the Institute for Microelectronics and Microsystems, which is part of the National Research Council (CNR), the country’s largest research organization. With RRF support, Di Bari is developing sensors to detect volatile organic compounds emitted by plants under stress, helping farmers better monitor crop health. Although her project will continue with new funding, Di Bari’s contract expires in January 2027, and under new CNR rules adopted in September, researchers can work on fixed-term contracts for no longer than 30 months, a milestone Di Bari has now reached. The team may have to recruit someone unfamiliar with the research in her place. “You’re losing the expertise, you’re losing the know-how that has been generated in the meantime,” she says.

Others agree. Sociologist Serena Fabrizio was among 35 fixed-term researchers working on a €37 million RRF-funded project to develop data sets and services for research in sociology, economics, and public policy. She is now in a permanent position, overseeing a follow-up at CNR’s Institute for Research on Sustainable Economic Growth, but the new restrictions could prevent her from hiring colleagues who built the infrastructure and understand how it works, she says. “The approach is completely illogical.”

The end of recovery funding also poses employment challenges in Greece, where a €62.5 million RRF-funded program supported 279 research projects employing 1826 temporary staff, including postdoctoral researchers and Ph.D. candidates. The Hellenic Foundation for Research and Innovation, which administered the program, says the positions were tied to the duration of the projects and there was no provision for continuing researchers’ employment once the projects ended. In July 2025, the government scrapped a separate program called Trust Your Stars, which had aimed to use €80 million of RRF money to attract Greek scientists working abroad back to the country.

Portugal has taken a different approach. Its science funding agency used €197 million of national and RRF funding to create FCT-Tenure, a program that will help universities and research institutes hire 1104 scientists into permanent positions in its first round. The RRF money covers two-thirds of salary costs for the first 2 years, after which national funding takes over, with employing institutions contributing the remaining costs.

But many workers in science and higher education employed through Portugal’s recovery plan still face uncertainty. In April, the national commission monitoring the program urged the government to find ways to retain qualified staff employed on RRF projects, warning their departure could mean losing expertise. Trade unions in Spain have raised similar concerns about the fate of workers on temporary RRF-funded contracts.

Because RRF payments were tied to agreed milestones such as launching projects or completing facilities, some scientists worry countries have little incentive to follow up after the EU program ends. A laboratory may be completed or an instrument installed, but whether it produces scientific discoveries depends on retaining people with the expertise to use it, Fabrizio says.

Keeping up that momentum over the coming years will be a challenge. For his part, Smits is not optimistic: “Most governments always think short term, 4 years in a row till the next elections, and not about the long-term interests of their country.”

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