EU Covid recovery fund ‘could transform R&D in some countries’

First annual report finds implementation of the Recovery and Resilience Facility “well underway”, says Commission

The €723.8 billion fund set up by the EU to help its member states recover from the Covid-19 pandemic can have “a real transformative impact” on the development of some of those countries’ research and innovation systems, according to a European Commission report.

Several eastern and southern European member states have a high allocation from the fund and low prior spending on research and innovation as a share of their GDP, meaning that their investments from the fund “amount to over one year of (pre-Covid) public investments in research and innovation”, the report—which covered the fund’s first year—said.