ALICE joins 84 European associations in calling for a bold FP10

Research and innovation as drivers of European competitiveness 

The Joint Declaration highlights that Europe faces growing global competition while productivity growth continues to slow. Research and innovation are identified as essential drivers of sustainable economic growth, enabling Europe to develop new technologies, strengthen industrial leadership and create resilient value chains. 

The signatories underline that the next Framework Programme should reflect this ambition through a substantially increased budget and a strong commitment to collaborative, industry-driven research and innovation. 

Key recommendations for FP10 

The Joint Declaration calls on the European institutions to: 

• Allocate a substantially increased budget for FP10, aligned with Europe’s competitiveness ambitions. 
• Reinforce collaborative, industry-driven research and innovation through a strengthened Pillar II, supporting public-private partnerships that accelerate technology maturation and market deployment. 
• Ensure that FP10, together with the European Competitiveness Fund (ECF), supports the full research and innovation continuum – from fundamental research to deployment and scale-up – while preserving strong governance and synergies between both programmes. 

According to the declaration, maintaining a strong collaborative research framework is essential to reduce investment risks, accelerate innovation uptake and strengthen Europe’s industrial base. 

From research excellence to real-world impact 

While supporting excellent research remains essential, ALICE believes Europe’s challenge is no longer only generating innovation – it is ensuring that innovation reaches deployment, scale and market impact. 

Across freight transport and logistics, Europe has already developed many promising technologies and successful pilot projects. However, too often project results fail to progress into widespread operational deployment. 

At the same time, logistics is undergoing several transformations simultaneously, including decarbonisation, the energy transition, digitalisation and Artificial Intelligence, automation, and increasing geopolitical and supply chain uncertainty. These transitions interact with one another, making innovation far more complex than simply advancing technologies through higher Technology Readiness Levels (TRLs). 

Europe therefore needs innovation approaches that combine technology push with market demand pull, bringing technology developers together with companies, operators, customers, investors and policymakers in real deployment environments where technological, operational, business and regulatory readiness can evolve together. 

Why FP10 matters for logistics

For ALICE and the European logistics community, FP10 represents an opportunity not only to develop new technologies but also to accelerate their deployment across European freight transport systems. 

Collaborative research has already delivered important advances in areas such as the Physical Internet, zero-emission freight transport, automation, digitalisation, data spaces and multimodal logistics. The next challenge is ensuring these innovations move beyond successful demonstrations and become widely adopted operational solutions. 

This is the ambition behind ALICE4IMPACT, the framework presented by ALICE at TRA 2026. The approach recognises that competitiveness increasingly depends not on who develops technologies first, but on who creates the conditions for rapid adoption, scaling and market uptake. 

FP10 should therefore strengthen the full pathway from research to impact by supporting: 

• Innovation scale-up and deployment activities  
• Living labs, innovation playgrounds and large-scale demonstration environments  
• Regulatory experimentation and adaptation  
• Standards and interoperability development  
• Business model validation and investment readiness  
• Cross-sector collaboration connecting innovators with adopters  

By bringing together technology developers, industry, public authorities and investors around real operational challenges, FP10 can help bridge the gap between research results and market deployment while strengthening Europe’s competitiveness and resilience. 

A shared commitment to Europe’s future 

By joining the Joint Declaration alongside 83 other European associations, ALICE reaffirms its commitment to ensuring that research and innovation remain at the heart of Europe’s competitiveness strategy. 

As negotiations on FP10 continue, ALICE will continue advocating for a Framework Programme that not only supports excellent research, but also creates the conditions for innovation deployment, market uptake and large-scale impact. Through the ALICE4IMPACT approach, ALICE will continue promoting stronger links between technology development, market demand, standards, policy and commercial implementation to help Europe translate innovation into competitiveness. 

The full Joint Declaration is available below.