On 14 May 2026, the REMORA Policy Lab will hold its third workshop during the REMORA Symposium in Madeira. This session will explore how regional smart specialisation strategies and structural funds can amplify Horizon Europe support tools to increase the number of successful applications from the Outermost Regions.
What is the Policy Lab?
The Outermost Regions are caught in a “substitution trap”: large structural funds allocations and institutional pressure to maximise absorption rates deter many talented organisations and individuals to submit proposals to Horizon Europe. La Réunion’s ratio speaks for itself — €0.02 leveraged under Horizon 2020 for every euro of structural funds invested in R&I, against an EU27 average of €8.6.
To address this, REMORA runs a policy lab bringing together policymakers, managing authorities and experts from the Azores, La Réunion and Madeira, alongside practitioners from other Widening regions. Its mandate: increase mutual learning and co-design at least six policy tools to better incentivise and support Horizon Europe participation, in time for the 2028-2034 programming period.
Achievements So Far
Workshop 1 (October 2025) established the diagnostic. In many regions, structural funds and Horizon Europe follow different and sometimes competing logics. Decades of policies focused on the internal development of regional R&I systems combined with easily accessible funding source have fueled a “self-selection dynamic” : local organisations, researchers and innovators, rationally concentrate on structural funds seen as more accessible and less uncertain. To increase the number of successful applications, the challenge is thus to establish complementarities between the two programmes, here structural funds are strategically deployed to build the capacity, networks and risk tolerance needed to succeed in competitive calls
Workshop 2 (March 2026) moved to solutions : how can structural funds rules be modified to incentivise organisations to apply to Horizon Europe. A comparative mapping revealed how the Azores has already aligned its ERDF evaluation procedures with Horizon Europe standards — international expert panels, excellence–impact–implementation application forms — while La Réunion awards selection bonuses to past applicants and implements the Seal of Excellence. Concrete proposals emerged: conditioning infrastructure funding on internationalisation strategies, mission-based approaches to align funding streams, and Widening-project complementarity schemes.
What Comes Next
Workshop 3 shifts from rules to tools: what support instruments can structural funds finance to help organisations build competitive proposals and plug into European networks? A fourth workshop in June will address the redesign of the next generation of Operational Programmes ahead of 2028-2034. Regional workshops in each territory will then translate conclusions into concrete S3 and OP evolutions. A synthesis report will be produced by October 2026.
Interested in joining the policy lab? Contact philippe.holstein ( a) cellule-europe.re
