Copenhagen, Denmark, 1 December 2025

Ladies and gentlemen,

It is a great pleasure to be at the start of this conference on Human Values and Grand Challenges and to join you in reflecting on the role of the social sciences, the arts, and the humanities in shaping the future of research and innovation.

Let me begin by thanking our hosts. My sincere appreciation goes to Professor Rasmus Antoft for his introduction, and to Professor Henrik Halkier and his team for the excellent cooperation throughout this year. Your commitment is the reason we are gathered here today.

In preparing for this conference, one passage in the programme especially resonated with me:

“European innovation, to be successful, must be based on human values, because human values reflect what people consider worthwhile in life. The goal of innovation is not only to make life easier, smarter, quantifiably longer or more prosperous, but also to ensure that life remains worth living.”

This captures precisely why we are here. When we speak about values, we cannot avoid recalling the values enshrined in the EU Treaties and in the Charter of Fundamental Rights: human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, the rule of law, and human rights. These values define the European way of life. They are not abstract — they guide our policies, our decisions, and our cooperation.

They also guide the EU’s research and innovation agenda. Cluster 2 of Horizon Europe — Culture, Creativity and Inclusive Society — explicitly focuses on these human values.

But today, I want to look beyond a single cluster – or a single sector. I want to speak about the integration of Social Sciences and Humanities (SSH) across the entire Horizon Europe programme

Because SSH is not an add-on. It is essential in collaborative research – where consortia consist of many partners, many disciplines and from different countries.

SSH integration is crucial for understanding societal dynamics and for ensuring that the solutions we develop are meaningful, inclusive, and grounded in human experience.

Our first Horizon Europe SSH Integration Monitoring Report, published this summer, fully confirms this.

The findings are encouraging. In the period 2021–2023, more than €7 billion — representing 41% of the Horizon Europe Pillar II budget — went to SSH-flagged topics. These topics – from transport, health, climate, democracy (to name a few) – targeted the inclusion of social sciences and humanities. This alone shows the breadth of SSH research within the Horizon Europe programme.

The report also highlights some challenges. Interdisciplinary cooperation requires a shared language and shared understanding. In some fields, this common language is still developing.

To make SSH integration effective, projects need: • a clear, common objective, • strong interdependence between disciplines, and • time to build mutual understanding.

Fortunately, we already have excellent examples of projects where this works in practice, showing how SSH enriches research on climate, inequality, mobility, governance, and many other areas.

The report showcases some projects, such as the one called INSPIRE ‘INtegrated Short-term Palliative REhabilitation to improve quality of life and equitable care access in incurable cancer’.

INSPIRE brings together many disciplines. For example, social science researchers actively participate in clinical work. Coming from clinical science myself, I can testify that it is very easy to become absorbed in clinical metrics. But then you may easily overlook that palliative care is about understanding and prioritising what is important to the person and maintaining their quality of life.

Finally, evaluating the impact of SSH integration remains complex. Qualitative methods and in-depth assessments are needed. But this is not a problem, it is an opportunity to evolve how we think about impact in the first place.

And we in the Commission are fully convinced that the integration of SSH into all thematic clusters is worthwhile and should continue. This is one of the reasons why we decided to support this conference today.

To conclude: SSH integration is a cornerstone of Horizon Europe. Understanding its successes and challenges enables us to create research that responds to the complexity of today’s world — research that is impactful, relevant, and deeply human.

What lies ahead? The Work Programme 2026–2027 for Horizon Europe will be published next week, and I strongly encourage you to engage with the opportunities it will offer. Also, we are always looking for new expert evaluators – this is a great way to get involved in EU research!

Looking further ahead, this is also an important moment for shaping FP10, the next Framework Programme. You have certainly seen that the Commission’s proposal explicitly highlights the need to foster collaboration and multidisciplinarity, including with SSH, to generate new knowledge. The discussions with Member States — under the Danish Presidency’s stewardship — will be crucial.

Before closing, let me share one final message; Europe is a global magnet for talent, skills, and creativity.

We have great universities. We have great companies. And a lot of funding and infrastructure. But even more: it is because of our European values. At a time when research budgets are cut, and certain research activities are curbed in other parts of the world, Europe offers something irreplaceable: • freedom of thought, • freedom of speech, • freedom of inquiry, • and a commitment to human dignity and democratic principles.

These are not luxuries. They are the foundation for scientific excellence.

So let me end with this: In a world of shifting sands, Europe offers stability, openness, scale, and the freedom that researchers need to flourish.

Choose Europe.

Thank you. And wishing you a great event!

This speech reflects only the views of its author and does not, under any circumstances, represent the official position of the European Commission.