Defence, Security and Securitisation: Reconfiguring European Research and Innovation Policy

Part of the Deep Tech and Society online seminar series. Free and open to all; register through Microsoft Teams.

This talk examines how the proposed European research and innovation framework for 2028–2034 is repositioning universities/RSOs and scientific capabilities within an emerging defence–competitiveness–security nexus. Focusing on the planned links among Horizon Europe, the European Competitiveness Fund and the specific programme for defence research and innovation, it asks whether this architecture is eroding the long-standing institutional separation between civilian research funding and defence-oriented instruments.

This transformation is especially consequential for emerging fields that drive deep-tech development and may generate future strategic capabilities. It also reflects a broader shift in innovation practice: whereas technology transfer was long understood primarily as the movement of technologies from military research to civilian applications, innovation increasingly flows in the opposite direction, as commercially developed and civilian technologies are adapted for security and defence purposes. Thereby contributing to an intensifying military–civil fusion.

Empirically, the talk analyses the Commission’s proposals for Horizon Europe 2028–2034 and the European Competitiveness Fund, alongside the European Economic Security Strategy, the research-security agenda, STEP and the expansion of European defence innovation. It traces the developments: the alignment of frontier research with strategic priorities; the creation of a pathway from research and experimentation to industrial deployment and defence capability; and the protection of infrastructures, collaborations and knowledge transfers against security risks. The talk argues that the next Framework Programme forms part of a wider investment and security architecture in which competitiveness, technological sovereignty and defence readiness reinforce one another, bringing defence and dual-use objectives into the mainstream of research and innovation policy. This raises fundamental questions about the civilian orientation of EU research funding, the distribution of authority between research and strategic policy, and the safeguards required to protect academic freedom, basic research, proportionality and responsible international cooperation.

About the speaker

Harald Kleinberger-Pierer is a research manager and historian of economics, with a focus on Research Organization, Responsible Research and Innovation, and the History of Science and Technology. He is part of the Research Security Team and the Support Team for International Funding Programs within Research Management at the University of Graz. In this role, he contributes to several initiatives like the Research Security bottom-up initiative in the Arqus European University Alliance. In addition, he is a lecturer for Ethics and Technology Assessment.