Discussion

This interview was first published in the 2024 Hamburg Science Summit booklet.

Dr Letta, you recently wrote a major report to the European Council on the European Union’s Single Market. What makes the Single Market so important for the EU’s competitiveness?

The Single Market is more than just a technical project; it is a fundamental political initiative that drives growth, prosperity, and solidarity across Europe. It enables the EU to achieve strategic objectives such as the green and digital transitions, EU enlargement, and enhanced defense capabilities. By fostering an integrated market, it allows the EU to mobilize private and public resources more effectively, creating a robust financing framework for its ambitious goals. Moreover, the Single Market supports job creation, innovation, and the scalability of EU businesses, enhancing their ability to compete globally and negotiate favorable trade agreements​.

In your report, you argue that research and innovation should be introduced as a “fifth freedom” within the Single Market. What would such a fifths freedom look like?

The Single Market, traditionally defined by the four freedoms – movement of people, goods, services, and capital – relies on 20th-century principles that no longer fully capture the complexities of a market transformed by digitalization, innovation, and the pressures of climate change. The lines between goods and services have blurred, merging in ways that challenge the old distinctions and overlook the nuances of the digital and circular economies. Therefore, adding a fifth freedom to the previous ones is an indispensable extension of the established framework. This fifth freedom should encompass several fields, among which research, innovation, data, competences, knowledge and education. It would place these drivers at the heart of the Single Market, creating an ecosystem where the spread of knowledge boosts economic growth, societal progress, and cultural development. Focus on this action should be central in the next legislative term, with the aim of positioning the EU at the edge of technological transformations.

Europe has its strengths in basic research, but struggles to translate scientific excellence into marketable innovations. Could the changes in the Single Market help to bridge this research-to-practice gap?

Enhancing the Single Market can indeed bridge the gap between Europe’s scientific strengths and its ability to create marketable innovations. Simplifying the regulatory framework and introducing a European Code of Business Law would unify the market and reduce administrative burdens, making it easier for businesses to operate and innovate. Additionally, creating a more competitive industrial strategy and supporting the scalability of EU companies would facilitate the transition from research to practical, marketable innovations. These measures would ultimately boost the EU’s competitiveness on the global stage, ensuring that Europe remains at the forefront of technological and economic progress. With these improvements, the Single Market can become a powerful engine of innovation and growth, securing a prosperous future for the entire European Union.

This interview was first published in the 2025 Hamburg Science Summit booklet.

Professor Leptin, as the debate around the next framework programme FP10 gains momentum, questions arise about the ERC’s role in the broader innovation agenda. How can frontier research contribute to Europe’s innovation capacity while maintaining the ERC’s core mission of scientific excellence?

Science and technological innovation are tightly intertwined – but innovation is not linear. The most transformative breakthroughs are often unpredictable and come from curiosity-driven research. This is why bottom-up research, selected only for its scientific excellence, is critical. The ERC supports precisely this kind of frontier science. While other funding programmes come with predefined priorities, the ERC lets researchers explore the unknown, often generating discoveries that later contribute to EU priorities. Without this complementary role, FP10 risks prioritising incremental results and missing out on transformative breakthroughs.

Moreover, frontier research is also a training ground for Europe’s knowledge workforce. So far, ERC projects have hosted more than 100,000 team members, mainly PhD students and postdocs – Europe’s next generation of professionals, skilled in cutting-edge methods and technologies. Policy-driven and exploratory research complement each other, but long-term competitive advantage and societal resilience depend on the open-ended, bottom-up research the ERC champions.

The ERC has become a global benchmark for scientific excellence. But many research institutions struggle with long-term funding, bureaucracy and fragmented careers. What structural conditions are needed to make Europe truly attractive for world-class science?

Research investment, career prospects and systemic barriers remain key issues. President Ursula von der Leyen has recently proposed ambitious plans for the next long-term budget, stating that “an investment in science is an investment in our future”. But the EU cannot do it alone. National governments must also strengthen their commitment to R&I investments to reduce disparities across countries and to strengthen Europe. Reforms of academic careers – especially perspectives for independent careers – are critical for making research professions more attractive. Finally, we need to address systemic barriers such as reliable data accessibility. Centralised and accessible European data infrastructures, supported by harmonised regulation and dedicated financial resources, must become a strategic priority.

Looking ahead ten years: What would success look like for the European Research Area – and what role should the ERC play in shaping that vision?

The European Research Area is the ambition to create a single, borderless market for research, innovation and technology across the EU. We strongly support this ambition. As the ERC, we listen to the community, and try to lead through our policies, for instance by recognising diversity in career achievements. The ERC also shapes Europe’s research landscape by creating a pan-European competition of ideas and people, and by setting a benchmark for excellence.

Europe has great potential, but we cannot take progress for granted. Complex geopolitics, shifting policy priorities, increasing fragmentation, and budgetary constraints all pose real risks. One sign of success would be if European researchers, as well as students could really move freely across borders without constraints to their academic and personal progress. Europe needs to be a leader – not a follower – if it is to achieve its ambitions.

This interview was first published in the 2025 Hamburg Science Summit booklet.

Professor Heitor, in your report Align, Act, Accelerate you argue that disruptive innovation is unlikely to emerge from the EU’s conventional funding system. What needs to change to foster breakthrough innovation?

The report must be read in the context of the current geopolitical situation – over three years into the war in Ukraine and with a new US administration in place. Alongside the Letta, Draghi and Niinistö reports, it underscores the need for Europe to unite its forces: we must accelerate our collective response to geopolitical threats, boost innovation in defence and security, and rethink our understanding of “science for policy”.

Europe is the world’s most reliable partner – and the most efficient in terms of outputs per resources, thanks to our diversity. While investment capacities still lag behind, we now have a unique opportunity to advance research and innovation towards strategic autonomy on a world level. President von der Leyen’s ReARM EU initiative and the Union Strategy on Preparedness mark key steps in this direction. We must also reform our funding system to promote greater risk-taking, faster decisions, and institutional tolerance for failure. The ERC and EIC remain essential, but additional mechanisms are needed.

You propose a dedicated experimental unit within the European Commission to test new instruments and faster funding. What could such a unit look like in practice?

We all are facing an accelerating pace of technological change, in times of abundance of knowledge. New instruments are essential, inspired by models such as Germany’s SPRIN-D and the UK’s ARIA. An Experimental Unit under the EIC could assess and test novel funding mechanisms, many already piloted by private foundations. It could also help attract more private investment through co-funding, especially in areas like industrial greening and food security. Additionally, it should develop effective tools for technology monitoring – a crucial capacity in times of rapid transformation – with strong private sector involvement. The aim is not to replace existing structures, but to complement them with agile, risk-tolerant approaches.

Innovation is increasingly seen as a key factor for strategic autonomy and competitiveness. What role should the next European Framework Programme (FP10) play to position Europe as a leader in science-based transformation?

An effective European research and innovation ecosystem – including a European Defence and Research Area, as recently proposed by the Commission’s Joint Research Centre – will require coordinated efforts on multiple fronts. FP10 must be strengthened and restructured around four interconnected spheres: competitive excellence, industrial competitiveness, societal challenges, and a more robust innovation ecosystem.

Europe must escape the “mid-tech trap” by prioritizing high added-value technologies such as AI, space systems, advanced materials, quantum and robotics. A stronger, more unified public procurement system at the EU level is needed to scale innovation, alongside a cohesion policy that fosters defence, security and space-related supply chains across all regions. At the global level, Europe must pursue tailored partnerships – including with the US, China, India and Brazil – while adopting a more targeted approach to research security, based on project-level evaluation rather than top-down controls.

This interview was first published in the 2025 Hamburg Science Summit booklet.

Professor Jasanoff, you have been a leading figure in Science and Technology Studies since the 1980s. Looking back, how has the way we talk about science evolved over the years – especially in policy-relevant fields such as climate research?

It is striking how little the public discourse on science for policy has changed in spite of our growing scholarly understanding of the social foundations of knowledge-making. The dominant view still remains that science represents nature and policy should follow science. One problem with this view is that it brackets off science as an ivory tower activity and absolves society at large of any responsibility for generating knowledge about its own condition. Political authorities are then at liberty to shut down lines of research they don’t like, thereby creating a regime of self-inflicted ignorance.

A different picture emerges from Science and Technology Studies. We would recognize that knowledge and its uptake are co-produced—that is, “we the people” accept certain topics and ways of knowing because we are actively committed to exploring the endpoints of knowledge: whether the distant origins of the universe or the causes of climate change. This perspective embraces science as an ongoing expression of society’s best interests, and hence not to be shut down on the political whims of the moment.

In a recent interview with DIE ZEIT, you described the United States as being caught in a “civil war of ideas” since the Trump era. What do you mean by this – and how does it affect the role of science in public policy?

At the risk of oversimplifying, the “civil war” is between those who see scientific knowledge as a search for truth divorced from politics and those who see science as a powerful vessel for incubating particular forms of politics and ideology. Right now, in the United States, we seem to be in the grip of the “it’s all politics” framing, enabling those in power to erase knowledge created by their perceived opponents. The attacks have centered on knowledge that we might call cosmopolitan, that is, knowledge which makes us more inclined to take responsibility for our neighbors’ problems. I mean areas such as climate research, pandemic preparedness, global hunger and poverty, mental health, or social diversity.

Policy needs science as much as science needs policy, and erasing uncomfortable truths is never the answer. At the same time, putting politics back into science policy could have beneficial consequences. It might force scientists to justify the value of what they do, so more people will buy in – not because science is value-free but because science is how we best know ourselves.

We are seeing growing political pressure on science in the US, which has also fueled debates in Europe about encouraging American researchers to move across the Atlantic. In your view, how should Europeans respond to the current situation?

It is tempting to say that Europe is doing a good thing in wooing American researchers because fine minds should be offered the best possible support, and right now the United States is less hospitable to science than Europe is. After all, this just reverses the many episodes of brain drain that have affected European science, not just from Germany in the mid-20^th century but also from Thatcher’s Britain in the 1980s.

However, I can’t help feeling that this moment calls for more than just incentives for the fortunate scientists who are mobile enough to benefit from international recruitment. I would like to see European science institutions join together to articulate a set of norms that would help guard against abuses of power by political authorities who dislike uncomfortable truths. We should recognize as a global community that scientific ideas are not just commodities for sale to the highest bidder, but that free inquiry is a human right and should be defended as such by the entire scientific world.

This interview was first published in the 2025 Hamburg Science Summit booklet.

Professor Wehner, quantum networks promise applications that go far beyond the capabilities of classical networks. What fascinates you about the quantum internet – and how do you envision its most transformative applications?

On a fundamental level, I am fascinated by the idea that it would allow us to use an entirely new form of communication: quantum communication. If we believe that nature is governed by quantum mechanics, then this is the ultimate form of communication allowed by nature. It has very different properties from what we are used to – like the fact that quantum information cannot be copied. What’s more, two remote quantum bits can be in a special state called entanglement. This forms a fundamentally unsharable connection, enabling a kind of coordination that is impossible with any classical technology.

Historically, accessing new forms of communication has had a major impact on society. There are already several example applications that illustrate how these unusual properties can help solve problems that are otherwise impossible or inefficient to tackle. For instance, quantum communication can provide security against any eavesdropper – even one equipped with a quantum computer now or in the future – because entanglement forms a fundamentally private connection.

As Director of the Quantum Internet Alliance, you are leading Europe’s effort to realize a prototype quantum internet by 2030. Why is it strategically important for Europe to invest in quantum networking?

There are fundamentally two reasons. First, the economic one. Quantum networking is already known to have interesting applications, so it’s an important future technology. The Draghi report shows that the GDP gap between the EU and the US widened from 15% in 2002 to 30% today, with 70% of that gap due to a productivity shortfall – largely because Europe didn’t lead in the first digital revolution. While we don’t yet know the full size of the future quantum industry, large investments outside Europe show that this technology will be developed. The question is whether Europe can turn its R&D lead into innovation and economic return.

Second, security. Although quantum internet technology supports many applications, one is untappable communication. This is being developed outside Europe – for example, in China. Failing to build European quantum communication technologies would mean relying on non-European security in the future. So it is vital that Europe not only supports quantum networking research, but also pushes to bring it from the lab to the field, developing a strong ecosystem and delivering to real users.

With the Körber Prize, you receive one of Europe’s most prestigious science awards. How do you plan to use the €1 million in prize funds – and how might your work contribute to research and European industry?

I am very humbled and excited by the award. I hope to use its visibility to highlight the large collaborative effort needed to make quantum internet technology a success with and for Europe. We are in a strong scientific position, but it is crucial that academia and industry work together. I will continue to support this via the Quantum Internet Alliance, where we are building a prototype quantum internet in a large European collaboration. I plan to use most of the prize funds to discover new applications of quantum networking – applications that can make this technology genuinely useful to society. I am driven by the idea that quantum communication can and should be used by all – and new applications are key to that goal.

This interview was first published in the 2024 Hamburg Science Summit booklet.

Ms Russo, the European Commission’s new political guidelines put a strong emphasis on science and research. How does this priority influence your strategic agenda for the coming years?

Research and innovation are at the core of the EU’s prosperity. At the Directorate-General, we focus on critical and strategic areas such as AI, biotechnologies, advanced materials, or clean tech. Through R&I, Europe should develop and apply cutting-edge technologies in priority areas that make its role globally indispensable in value chains and in key industries. This requires strategic choices based on evidence, foresight on the development of specific technologies and an understanding of the EU’s position at the global level. At the same time, R&I needs an overarching framework to be successful. An attractive environment for industrial research is also necessary to boost private investments. As highlighted by Enrico Letta in his report to the European Council, fostering a more innovation-friendly regulatory environment, shaping international standards and increasing the mobility of talent and skills should be priorities. This can be achieved by introducing a “fifth freedom” in Europe, dedicated to the free movement of research, innovation, knowledge and education.

Collaboration between academia and business could be the key to translating Europe’s scientific strengths into marketable innovations. How can we build and support effective cooperation between these sectors in Europe?

A systemic change to better connect science, industry, policy and society is required to improve the valorisation of research results across the Union. A new legal framework for enhancing intellectual asset management could be established to accelerate market uptake and the industrial and commercial scale-up of innovation. Specific obligations to exploit knowledge valorisation in Europe beyond the current “best effort” should be envisaged. We will also explore the need for an intermediary to centralise and manage scattered patent rights. Standards play a pivotal strategic role, serving as the silent foundation of our Single Market, ensuring a high level of safety, functionality and interoperability for EU materials and products. To support our strategic choices in industrial R&I and the valorisation of research and innovation results, it is essential to have appropriate standards. Standards guarantee adherence to policy and legal objectives and can facilitate access to global markets.

Artificial intelligence could be another key driver of innovation. But AI could also change science itself. What are your expectations for the future impact of AI on research processes?

To increase Europe’s competitiveness, we need to accelerate the responsible integration of AI into science. This is existential for the future of Europe’s leadership in research and innovation, as well as a strategic edge in the global AI race. AI in science will help our researchers to speed up innovation and the subsequent market deployment of new technologies. We are talking about technologies that impact our health, our climate and our competitiveness in the world. Together with stakeholders, we have already developed guidelines for the responsible use of AI in science. In April 2024, our Scientific Advice Mechanism issued an opinion on the uptake of AI in research and innovation. We will keep making efforts to ensure that scientists in the EU have access to the proper tools to enable them fully to tap into the potential of AI in science. This has also been highlighted by President von der Leyen in the political guidelines for the next Commission, which call for the setup of a European AI Research Council.

This interview was first published in the 2024 Hamburg Science Summit booklet.

Professor Cantner, last year the German Commission of Experts for Research and Innovation, which you chair, called for a Zeitenwende in innovation policy. What exactly do you mean by that?

With our call for a Zeitenwende in research and innovation policy, we urge the German Federal Government to change the nature of its R&I policy in line with the transformation towards sustainability and in relation to future key technologies. Radical technological innovations characterize transformations such as the shift to non-fossil engines in the automotive industry. And they provoke profound economic and social change. The traditional approach to R&I policy does not do justice to this nature of transformation: it neither explicitly aims to promote radical innovation, nor does it take the resulting structural change into account. The new style of R&I policy that we are calling for, the New Mission Orientation, is set up differently: radical technological changes are a clear goal, accompanied by social innovations; strategies and measures are developed and implemented across ministries; policy instruments are regularly evaluated; market forces for problem solving are emphasized; and social compensation for those disadvantaged by change is considered from the outset.

For decades, the German model was to refine existing technologies rather than develop new ones. Has “German incrementalism” had its day?

“German incrementalism” refers to the ability of German industry to refine technologies, products, processes and services through incremental steps, leading to perfection and sophistication. In recent decades, the German economy has relied very successfully on these outstanding skills. But they are less relevant today. Rather than incremental improvements, we need radical changes towards a greener economy and towards future key technologies. However, German companies are finding it difficult to implement such changes. In digitalization, for example, the German economy is falling behind in international rankings and is now below the EU average. Likewise, German automobile companies, only slowly switching to non-fossil vehicles, lose international competitiveness. A strong push for technological reorientation across the entire spectrum of German industry is required. If successful, “German incrementalism” will have its day again and will help to improve the international competitiveness of German companies – no longer in traditional technologies, but in future key technologies as well as in technologies addressing climate change.

Europe has long relied on Germany’s economic strength. Now the growth engine is faltering. Does Germany need to improve for Europe to prosper again?

There are several reasons why Germany, the growth engine, has stalled. In addition to inflation, interest rate policy, protectionism and excessive bureaucracy, it is above all a growing technological gap in future technologies. German innovation activities do not keep pace with developments at the world technology frontier. There are warning signals Germany must take very seriously: Not only is Germany technologically falling behind on a world scale – Korea, Japan, China and the US are ahead – it is also falling behind within the EU, especially when it comes to digital technologies. The latter tendency indicates that other European economies have redirected their innovation and production activities earlier and are already showing economic success. The previously strongest EU economy has so far failed to do so. Hence, Germany must first do its homework by redirecting innovation activities from traditional, established areas to the key technologies of the future. With every step that Germany climbs up the EU rankings, its power to drive Europe forward will return.

This interview was first published in the 2024 Hamburg Science Summit booklet.

Dr Mendila, mRNA was the technology of the moment during the COVID-19 pandemic. Today, there is talk of mRNA vaccinations against cancer. How far away are we from that?

mRNA enabled the rapid development of effective vaccines during the global COVID crisis, highlighting its immense potential in infectious diseases and beyond. Research in cancer vaccines has been ongoing for over two decades, but success has been mixed, and these therapeutic vaccines have yet to demonstrate clinical benefit in confirmatory clinical trials. Recently, encouraging data for mRNA-based cancer vaccines has started to emerge. These vaccines have been tested in various clinical settings in patients with early and advanced cancer and demon­strated immune responses associated with clinical benefits. The concept for applying mRNA in cancer is very similar to infectious disease vaccines: The mRNA cancer vaccine encodes proteins specific to cancer cells, teaching immune cells to recognize and destroy them. Early data, though often from small patient groups, raises our hope that we can overcome the challenges of cancer vaccines with mRNA technology in the near to midterm future. This potential breakthrough could revolutionize how we approach cancer treat­ment, offering a new avenue for targeted and effective therapies.

There is a lot of excellent biotech research in Germany and Europe. However, the risk capital often comes from the USA. Is that a problem for us in Europe?

Access to excellent biotech research and outstanding academic science in Europe is a strong catalyst for our industry. However, access to capital is governed by different factors. The ability to tap into the capital market is easiest via a stock market listing, and for biotech companies, a US Nasdaq listing, with its historically strong technology focus, means the company is placed alongside relevant industry peers. Statistics show that US investors mainly invest domestically, but European investors also predominantly invest in the US. Culturally, the willingness to take risks and engage in opportunistic buying and selling is generally higher in the US than in Europe. This is particularly relevant for biotech, a dynamic field where investors must balance the risks of partially validated technologies with the blue-sky potential of transformative breakthroughs. A stronger risk-taking culture is an important factor why the US continues to lead biotech activities in the capital market.

The business of biotechnology has lean periods and is subject to fluctuations. The German government has a 13 per cent stake in CureVac. Is the state the more reliable investor?

The business of biotechnology companies indeed experiences lean periods and fluctuations due to the high-risk, high-reward nature of the industry. During the COVID crisis, the German government made a significant investment into CureVac, supporting the need for safe and effective vaccines and demonstrating a commitment to public health and rapid innovation. This was a unique situation driven by an unprecedented global emergency. But the government is normally not a long-term biotech investor – biotech companies rely mostly on institutional investors who are accustomed to the inherent risks of the industry. The government’s support was crucial during the pandemic to allow rapid progress in vaccine development, and we greatly appreciate this support and investment.