NTNU European Conference
The 10th edition NTNU European Conference
4 November 2026 | THE RESIDENCE PALACE | In-person event with streaming
Marking the 10-year anniversary of the NTNU European Conference, this edition reflects on a decade of engagement with Europe’s research and innovation agenda while looking ahead to the next phase and the priorities and opportunities it presents.
Against the backdrop of today’s global challenges, the conference will highlight the value of knowledge-based solutions in addressing them. Special attention is given to emerging technologies, energy transition, climate, and fairness as central dimensions shaping global transformations. Dual-use issues and relations with the Global South will feature as important cross-cutting themes throughout the discussions.
The conference will conclude with a reflection on funding instruments and their capacity to support the pathways explored. As the design of FP10 and the European Competitiveness Fund (ECF) enters a decisive phase, this discussion takes on particular importance.
Programme
08:30 Registration
Welcome coffee and pastries
09:00 Opening session
Open and strategic international R&I cooperation: What to expect in a time of global uncertainty
Moderated
In the opening session of the NTNU European Conference 2026 we are addressing the EU’s role as a global R&I actor. What can we expect and what role do we want the EU to take in the coming MFF (2028 – 2035), FP10 and ECF? How will the EU remain open to international knowledge collaboration, while increasingly prioritising competitiveness, strategic autonomy, resilience, protecting critical technologies, research security, and economic interests? Key policymakers and stakeholders will share their visions for the EU as a global leader in international R&I cooperation.
The discussion takes the EU’s Global Approach to Research and Innovation (2021) as its starting point. This strategy outlines EU's vision for R&I cooperation worldwide and its position as an open and value-driven R&I actor committed to research excellence and addressing global challenges. Core objectives include preserving openness, promoting reciprocity and a level playing field, strengthening partnerships, and providing fair access to research programmes, infrastructure, data, and innovation opportunities.
The discussion is framed by the Draghi report (2025) which supports that Europe should remain open to international talent and scientific cooperation, but protect critical technologies and economic security. EU priorities are expected to focus on AI, quantum, semiconductors, defence and dual use, clean energy, and digital infrastructure. While international cooperation is likely to remain open through FP10, collaboration in sensitive technologies may be more selective due to security concerns, with stronger emphasis on partnerships with like-minded countries and R&I as a tool for competitiveness, resilience and geopolitical influence.
- Will the EU support a continued single, unified and open global research and innovation system as opposed to a fragmented one driven by geopolitical tensions?
- Will the EU be a continued driver of international R&I cooperation, or be more selective and inward looking?
- How can the EU support strategic autonomy while remaining internationally engaged to address climate change, biodiversity loss, health and pandemic preparedness, sustainable development, digital technologies and AI and energy transition challenges?
- How will the EU continue to promote excellence in research though international cooperation, attract the best researchers worldwide, uphold shared values like academic freedom, research ethics, open science, gender equality and support evidence-based policymaking in the global research and innovation system?
10:30 Coffee break
11:00 Parallel sessions
PARALLEL SESSION 1
Energy Security and Global Transitions:
Key Dilemmas for European Competitiveness
Moderated
Europe, and the world, are navigating an era of polycrisis. According to the World Economic Forum’s Global Risks Outlook for 2025, the most pressing threats include state-based armed conflict, climate-driven extreme weather events, geoeconomic fragmentation, the spread of misinformation and disinformation, and deepening social polarisation. These risks do not exist in isolation; they reinforce one another, creating an increasingly volatile and uncertain global landscape.
Against this backdrop, the European Commission is advancing key policy frameworks—such as energy security initiatives and the Global Europe strategy, along with regional trade agreements such as EU-India FTA, and science and innovation collaboration strategies such as the AU-EU Innovation Agenda—aimed at safeguarding Europe’s energy systems and critical supply chains. At the same time, these policies explicitly seek to strengthen global partnerships, particularly with Sub-Saharan Africa, to ensure that the transitions required to mitigate climate change are inclusive, just, and do not leave anyone behind. In this context, ensuring energy security at home while contributing meaningfully to a global, equitable energy transition abroad has become one of Europe’s main challenges.
This session brings together researchers, policymakers, and key stakeholders to explore these tensions. Together, we will examine how Europe can secure its energy future while supporting an inclusive and democratic energy transition in partner countries in the Global South.
Ultimately, we ask:
How can Europe meet its energy security needs without compromising its commitment to global solidarity, climate justice, and the principle of “leaving no one behind”?
Panel debate followed by an audience Q&A
PARALLEL SESSION 2
Emerging Technologies as a Competitive Advantage:
The Race for Trustworthy Innovation
Moderated
We are living through a period of technological acceleration without precedent. Artificial intelligence, quantum computing, advanced materials, cyber, robotics, advanced biotechnology, and next-generation autonomous technology necessitate infrastructures that are reshaping economies, redefining security, and reconfiguring the boundaries between the public and the private. The pace of change is outrunning the frameworks designed to govern it.
For Europe, this creates a strategic paradox. The continent’s commitment to open science, democratic values, and fundamental rights — the very foundations of the European Research Area — is increasingly at odds with the competitive pressures of a global technology race dominated by large, state-backed actors and platform standards. European researchers and institutions must operate at the frontier of discovery while navigating an environment shaped by export controls, dual-use concerns, asymmetric data access, and deepening geopolitical rivalries.
The promise of emerging technologies as engines of societal progress can only be realised if their governance is inclusive, their development trustworthy, and their deployment just.
This session convenes researchers, innovators, policymakers, and civil society stakeholders to examine these challenges at the intersection of technology, governance, and values. Leaning on insights from across disciplines — including computer science, ethics, law, social science, and engineering — we will explore what a genuine European approach to emerging technologies might look like in practice.
Ultimately, we ask:
How can Europe harness the transformative power of emerging technologies without sacrificing the openness, equity, and democratic accountability that define its research culture — and how FP10 and ECF will contribute to make this possible?
Panel debate followed by an audience Q&A
12:30 Networking lunch
14:00 Closing session
Is the future financing framework fit for purpose?
Moderated
As highlighted in the Draghi Report, Europe must close its innovation gap by improving the translation of research excellence into commercial success and by making more effective use of its financial resources. In this context, the design of a robust and future-oriented Research and Innovation (R&I) funding framework is becoming a key strategic priority for Europe, being for the first time considered as a cornerstone of the MFF competitiveness allocation.
By November 2026, discussions on the future Framework Programme (FP10) and the European Competitiveness Fund (ECF) are expected to have reached a mature stage, with many of the main policy choices and structural elements already taking shape. The evolving framework will define not only the relationship between these instruments and the introduction of new funding mechanisms, but also a renewed system of Strategic Partnerships that will shape collaboration between industry, research organisations, universities, and public authorities in the years ahead, contributing to bridging ECF and FP10.
Against this backdrop, the closing session of the NTNU European Conference will provide a timely opportunity for reflection and strategic debate. Bringing together key European stakeholders, the session will examine the direction that the emerging R&I landscape is taking, assess its implications for competitiveness and innovation, and discuss the opportunities, risks, and implementation challenges associated with the proposed framework. The session aims to offer a platform for feedback and dialogue at a pivotal moment in the policy-making process alongside the final negotiation stages of Europe's next research and innovation agenda.
15:30 Closing address
Practical information
Venue
The Residence Palace
Contact: info@residencepalace.be
- Phone: +32 2 235 21 11 (reception)
- Map
Contact
If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us via anlaug.o.ostby@ntnu.no
Practical information NTNU Brussels office
Organising committee
About the conference
The NTNU European Conference is an event introduced in the Brussels arena in 2016. It aims to facilitate discussions on R&I and Education policies and strategies between stakeholders.
The conference has grown in siginificance and popularity with increasing registrations and attendance over the years, becoming an arena of interaction between policymakers and representatives of higher education, industry, research, innovation as well as the civil society.