Regional and sectorial variations in attractiveness of funding from the European Union's Framework Programs: evidence of increasing divergence

The goal of this article is to deepen our understanding of geographical differences in the ability to attract funding from the European Union’s Framework Programs for Research and Innovation (EU FPs), by changing focus from country to a) the regional (NUTS-2) and b) sectorial level of Europe, where we explore variations between regions’ three main R&D sectors: higher education, business, and government. The study covers 57,795 EU funded projects from 2007 to 2020, showing that within each country, there are large difference in attractiveness between regions, and that within each region there are remarkable differences in comparative attractiveness of different sectors. Moreover, we observe a tendency of increasing divergence between regions in their level of EU FP funding attraction.