Excluding China from 'Horizon Europe' Backfires

The European Union (EU) has barred Chinese research institutions from participating in most projects under its Horizon Europe program starting this year, according to recent reports in Nature and some other media. Horizon Europe is the EU's key funding program for research and innovation.

Chinese entities are now limited to applying for projects in specific areas such as climate change, biodiversity, and food and agriculture. They are explicitly excluded from fields deemed "sensitive" by Brussels, including AI, telecommunications (such as 5G), healthcare, semiconductors, biotechnology and quantum technologies.

The EU justifies the restrictions by citing concerns that sharing advanced technologies with China could compromise regional security. However, this rationale appears contradictory. The European Commission's own website reports that Horizon Europe is focused on civilian applications, and does not involve technologies that could threaten security. Critics believe the ban effectively creates a barrier inside one of the world's largest research initiatives, excluding Chinese partners from areas where Europe itself needs guidance.

Launched in 2021 with a seven-year budget of 95.5 billion euros, one of Horizon Europe's core objectives is to enhance Europe's competitiveness and economic growth by addressing major scientific challenges and global issues. However, by limiting collaboration with Chinese scientists, who are increasingly leading many of these fields, the EU risks undermining its own goals and missing out on critical opportunities for joint breakthroughs.

China has rapidly emerged as a global powerhouse in science and technology. In AI, Chinese models such as DeepSeek and Seedance enjoy international acclaim. By 2025, China became the world's largest holder of AI patents, accounting for 60 percent of the global total. In telecommunications, companies like Huawei and ZTE continue to lead global 5G deployment, while China holds over 40 percent of all 6G-related patents. In January 2026, a report by the U.S.-based Center for Strategic and International Studies confirmed that China leads the world in both scientific output and patent filings in quantum computing, communication and sensing.

In recent years, Sino-European scientific cooperation has flourished yielding mutual benefits. By the end of 2025, Chinese institutions were involved in approximately 107 Horizon Europe projects.

A December 2025 report by Clarivate, a leading global provider of transformative intelligence, titled "Research Collaboration in a Changing World," noted a steady rise in collaborative papers between Chinese and EU researchers, which may possibly surpass those between the U.S. and China. Furthermore, the citation impact of China-EU co-authored papers now equals that of U.S.-EU collaborations.

However, the EU's new restrictions contradict this positive trend and ignore the reality that global scientific challenges require inclusive, borderless cooperation. As two of the world's major scientific forces, China and the EU share a responsibility to advance human civilization through science.

Rather than yielding to geopolitical anxieties and securitizing research, the EU should adopt a balanced perspective of China's technological progress, dismantle these unwarranted barriers, and reopen the door to equal, open and high-level scientific partnership. Only through joint efforts can both sides collectively solve shared challenges and deliver scientific achievements that benefit not just Europe and China, but the entire world.

Source: Science and Technology Daily