Research and development activity is essential for the European steel industry. It is only through constant innovation that the sector is able to expand is range of highly advanced steels, production techniques and improve its environmental standards. However, such development, as much as it brings with it a wide range of societal benefits, is also highly risky and capital intensive - often well beyond the capacity of individual steel companies to absorb.

As such, a comprehensive EU research framework is important to the sector, as it faces ever greater challenges, some of which can only be solved with breakthrough technologies. This is particularly the case for climate protection: reaching the EU's 2030 and 2050 CO2 emissions targets will only be achieved with co-funding of research, development and deployment funding.

The EU has a variety of research schemes, of which the Horizon Europe framework programme is the best known example. However, there is are also a range of schemes, such as co-programmed public-private partnerships (cPPPs), SPIRE, the EU ETS Innovation Fund and parts of the EU Green Deal which support EU companies with research funding.

These various schemes support the steel sector's innovation potential at different stages of technical readiness, funding theoretical research, technical demonstration, industrial demonstrator and full-scale deployment of breakthrough technologies.