Back to the future: Rethinking Framework in the context of enlargement?

Over the past forty years, the EU has almost tripled in size - and with each expansion, the Framework Programmes have served as a key vehicle for integrating new member-states into the European project, albeit with varying degrees of success. With conflict shadowing its eastern borders, and amid wider geopolitical tensions, enlargement is once again on the EU’s institutional agenda. But as deliberations begin over FP10, what will be the implications for research and innovation funding and programmes, as and when new countries join the Union? Should the current widening and strengthening model be rethought, reformed or replaced? And what critical lessons can be learned from previous cycles to optimise the benefits for the entire R&I community?