EU opens Horizon Europe to dual-use research as defence spending surges

The European Union's flagship research programme has been quietly opened to military-related work for the first time in its history. A regulation adopted in December 2025 amended the rules governing Horizon Europe, the €93.5bn funding instrument running from 2021 to 2027, so that projects with both civilian and defence applications, known as dual-use, can now receive support. The programme's previous guidelines required an "exclusive focus on civil applications". That restriction has been lifted without a dedicated legislative debate, tucked into a broader regulatory update that attracted little public attention.

The policy shift behind the rule change

The move is not an isolated administrative tweak. It sits inside Readiness 2030, a European Commission white paper published earlier this year that sets out a plan "for Europe to re-arm". The document argues that the EU faces "an acute and growing threat" while its "defence readiness has been weakened by decades of under-investment". It calls for the bloc to "establish a strong and competitive defence industrial base" and sets a target of nearly doubling annual defence spending to €800bn by 2030, compared with roughly €418bn in 2024. The Horizon adjustment is one of several instruments being repurposed to feed that industrial base.

Maciej Berestecki, the Commission's research spokesperson, framed the change in terms of efficiency and autonomy. In written answers he cited "strategic autonomy and reducing or cutting dependencies, increased cost efficiency, faster innovation cycles, improved spill-over effects, industrial resilience, and retaining talent" as the expected benefits. The language mirrors the Commission's long-standing argument that civil and defence research should not be siloed because technologies such as advanced sensors, encryption and materials science serve both markets.

A precedent already set

Critics point out that the boundary between civil and military funding was already porous. European Commission data analysed by Al Jazeera shows that Elbit Systems, an Israeli military technology company, received grants totalling €2.2m under a previous Horizon project. Elbit is a principal supplier to the Israeli military; its drones, surveillance and digital targeting systems have been used extensively in Gaza. The company was also named in a UN special rapporteur's report listing firms complicit in genocide.

Elbit participated in FLYSEC, a Horizon-funded consortium running from 2015 to 2018 that combined surveillance, biometrics and big-data analytics for airport and aviation security. The project developed electro-optic surveillance and image-processing technology, capabilities directly transferable to military platforms. A separate predecessor programme, OPARUS, helped a consortium including Israel Aerospace Industries develop thermal image generators and other technology used in military drones. Both companies rank among the world's top 50 arms manufacturers by revenue.

The traceability gap

Establishing a direct causal link between a specific EU grant and a weapon used in a conflict zone is notoriously difficult. Luca Schiewe, who coordinates the ExitArms database at the German NGO Facing Finance, explained that neither the exact outcomes of EU-funded projects nor the composition of exported weapon systems are publicly disclosed in sufficient detail. "We usually don't know the exact outcomes of a project funded by an EU programme and we don't know in which weapon systems which EU funded components are actually integrated," he said. "Thus, we just see on one side that a company receives EU funding for a certain research project. And on the other side, we see that this company exports certain weapon systems to war zones."

Wendela de Vries, a researcher at the Dutch peace organisation Stop Wapenhandel, has tracked EU arms policy for years. She argues the pattern is clear regardless of the evidentiary gap: "When the EU invests in the arms industry, it leads to drones and bombs that are being made and used against real people. It's about products that are made to kill people and that are exported to conflict zones where they affect civilians." The Commission did not respond directly to questions about these criticisms.

Universities caught in the middle

The research community is divided. Some university networks are calling for academic institutions to engage only with non-military research. But even defining the boundary is contested. Claire Gray, senior policy officer at the League of European Research Universities, said: "Dual-use can be pretty much everything if you take the widest definition of it. Research is powerful and EU funding is hugely important for universities and researchers of all kinds. But we need help and guidance when it comes to dual-use." The absence of a clear, binding taxonomy leaves institutions to self-assess, creating incentives to classify projects as civilian to maintain access to Horizon's large budgets.

Laura Shewan, a researcher and campaigner at Scientists for Global Responsibility, a UK-based NGO promoting responsible science and technology, sees a structural shift. "This is a very dangerous process," she said. "It blurs the difference between civilian and military aspects in research and is part of a broader trend of militarisation within the EU that has been accelerating the last 20 years." Shewan traces the acceleration to the period after Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine, which prompted a wave of defence spending increases across member states, many of which cut foreign aid budgets to accommodate them.

Strategic autonomy or mission creep?

The Commission's strategic autonomy argument rests on the premise that Europe cannot rely on external suppliers, particularly the United States, for critical technologies. A second Trump presidency has reinforced that conviction in Brussels and national capitals. But the mechanism chosen, folding dual-use eligibility into the main civil research programme, differs from the approach taken with the European Defence Fund (EDF), a separate instrument created in 2021 with a budget of around €7bn for 2021-2027 explicitly for defence research and development. Critics ask why Horizon's civil mandate was diluted rather than expanding the EDF or creating a new dedicated vehicle.

One answer may be political. Horizon commands €93.5bn, dwarfing the EDF. Opening even a fraction of that to dual-use projects unlocks vastly larger sums for defence-relevant innovation without requiring new legislative approvals or national budget negotiations. The December 2025 regulation achieved the shift through comitology, the EU's technical implementing procedure, bypassing the European Parliament's full legislative scrutiny.

What happens next

The first work programmes under the amended rules are already being drafted. The Commission has not published a list of eligible dual-use categories, leaving evaluators and applicants to interpret the scope. Meanwhile, the European Parliament's industry and research committees have requested a briefing on implementation safeguards. A hearing is scheduled for October 2026. Until then, universities and companies will decide project by project whether to pursue the new funding stream, effectively setting the practical boundaries of dual-use through their choices.