A symposium “From Barriers to Bridges: Towards a More Cohesive European Research Area” was organised by AE Budapest Hub on 5 November 2025.

The symposium aimed to highlight the current situation of ‘widening’ as a concept of EU research policy and to discuss the possible need for the reform of its instruments with a view to fostering scientific excellence in currently underperforming regions and a more cohesive and competitive European Research Area (ERA). After respective presentations by representatives of the European Commission on the upcoming framework programme (FP10) and on the recommendations of stakeholder organisations, in the second part of the event panellists were invited to share their views and suggestions aimed at improving EU RDI performance and competitiveness by achieving a more balanced distribution of funding for excellent research across Europe.

The programme can be downloaded from here.

The summary of the event, including the presentations of the two plenary speakers, Joerg Niehoff and Lidia Borrell-Damian, is available on the MTA website in English.

You can find the photo album for the event here.