For bold, value-driven investments in Education, Research and Innovation
06 May 2025
Input from the Coimbra Group on the EU’s next MFF 2028-2034
The Coimbra Group (CG) welcomes the opportunity to provide feedback on the European Union’s next Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) during this development phase. We highly appreciate the chance, in these challenging times, to engage in this important process and contribute to shaping the EU’s post-2027 long-term budget.
To gather insights and experiences and elaborate our network’s position, the 39 CG universities, all long-established research-intensive leading European higher education institutions, located in 22 countries, were consulted. Our contribution focuses mostly on the consultations on the EU funding for competitiveness (1) and the EU funding for cross-border education, training, and solidarity; youth, media, culture, and creative sectors; values, and civil society (2) – with a particular emphasis on our views for the future Erasmus+ programme and EU’s framework programme for research and innovation (R&I).
The first section of our input paper submitted in response to the Commission’s public consultation on the EU’s next MFF presents a set of considerations and recommendations, followed by concrete feedback on:
- Strengthening European competitiveness through bold investment in Research and Innovation
- Developing European values through Education and Mobility
- CG Universities’ overall experience with EU funding
EU funding programmes are essential for our universities, bringing a wide range of benefits. However current programmes remain largely underfunded. Coimbra Group therefore calls for significantly strengthened budgets for the next generation of both Erasmus+ and the EU R&I framework programme.
We look forward to continuing collaborating actively with the European Commission and other EU institutions on this important work.
Full position paper: