Minister for Higher Education and Science Christina Egelund's speech at Think Tank Europa's Stocktaking EU 2026 Conference, February 2nd 2026.
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Thank you to Think Tank Europa for bringing us together at a moment where we are all taking stock of a greatly changed world.
A world shaped by war and conflict. By strategic competition between major powers. By rapid technological change that blurs the line between civilian and military domains.
A world where the world order, as we have known it since the end of World War II, seems to be rapidly disintegrating.
The Danish physicist, Niels Bohr, supposedly said that it is hard to predict – especially when it comes to the future. And anyone who has followed the news just briefly in the last month or two would probably agree that those words ring especially true in 2026.
This also has a profound effect on research and innovation. In our current situation, research and innovation is no longer mainly a question of productivity and growth, but just as much a matter of strategic autonomy, security and resilience.
This also means that today’s discussions go way beyond defence.
They go to the very heart of how we in Europe are going to protect our values, our prosperity and our ability to act. How are we going to be best prepared for a much more unpredictable future?
For decades, Europe has been very good at producing knowledge.
We have world-class universities, excellent fundamental research and a strong tradition of international scientific cooperation.
But the geopolitical environment has changed the way knowledge is turned into power.
Today, technological leadership translates directly into geopolitical influence.
Data, artificial intelligence, quantum technologies, advanced materials, space and cyber capabilities shape security and defence just as much as armies and fighter jets once did.
At the same time, global technology markets are increasingly dominated by a small number of very large players.
And unfortunately, many of them are headquartered outside Europe.
These foreign tech giants are now important power players on the global arena.
Their owners are individuals who are not democratically elected, but who exercise decisive influence over Europe’s communication, security and economy – as well as over the content of our public debate.
They control critical infrastructures, they influence information flows and they set the pace of innovation in the tech industry.
We have already seen examples of tech giants meddling in politics. Especially in America, but also in Europe.
And I think this shows how digital sovereignty has become a strategic necessity. We need our own resilient digital infrastructure that upholds core European values like democracy and privacy.
To do this, we need a clear strategy. Long-term challenges cannot be solved with short-term solutions.
Too often, research and innovation policies have been shaped by fragmented funding, short political cycles and an aversion to risk.
If Europe is serious about strengthening our strategic autonomy, we must change this approach.
In Denmark, we have taken steps in this direction.
We have recently passed a new long-term strategic approach to funding for research and innovation. For the first time, we are committing funding over a longer time horizon, providing greater predictability for institutions, researchers and innovators.
And just last week a broad majority of the parties in the Danish Parliament reached an agreement on technology transfer to make the road between research and entrepreneurship shorter and easier to navigate.
At the same time, we are sharpening our strategic focus on critical and defence-related technologies, while maintaining high levels of investment in the green transition, health and life sciences.
The balance is essential.
It is important that security and defence does not come at the expense of climate action or public health. On the contrary: I believe Europe’s resilience depends on excellence across these fields as well.
This is part of what makes Europe unique.
Around the world, we see very different approaches to technology and innovation.
In the United States, the dominant driver is often commercial: How do we get people to buy more? How fast can we scale? How can we capture the largest possible market?
There is enormous creativity, but also an absence of restraint.
In China, the orientation is different, but equally clear: Win the global race. Use technology to gain strategic advantage. Use data to strengthen the state. Success is defined by control and speed.
And then, there is Europe.
Europe is not naïve. We know that innovation fuels prosperity. We know that technology is essential. We want economic success – of course we do.
But we also insist on innovating with respect for our core values.
Europe’s strength in research and innovation rests on academic freedom, institutional autonomy and openness.
In a more contested and polarised world, there can be a temptation to close systems, restrict cooperation or instrumentalise research too narrowly.
That would be a mistake.
Europe’s value-driven approach is not a disadvantage in the global competition. I believe the opposite – that it is a competitive advantage.
Europe care about the hard metrics like productivity, growth, jobs. But we also care about the soft ones like well-being, fairness, trust, social cohesion.
This broader lens is sometimes portrayed as a burden – a barrier to rapid development. But in the long run I believe it makes us stronger.
Societies built on trust are more resilient. Technologies that respect human dignity are more sustainable. Systems designed with ethics at the core are less likely to break, to backfire, or need to be rebuilt later.
Values give Europe direction. They give us meaning. And ultimately, they give us legitimacy.
Now is not the time to waver on our principles.
If Europe wants to remain attractive to global talent, if we want to lead in breakthrough innovation, we must continue to trust our research institutions and protect academic freedom.
Another lesson from our current situation is that Europe must fundamentally rethink our approach to risk.
We all know the term ‘valley of death’. The gap between promising research results and market-ready innovation.
In Europe, these valleys are often deepened by complex regulation, slow decision-making and a lack of risk-willing capital. Too many excellent ideas die not because they are weak, but because the system around them is.
If we want a European DARPA-like capability, we need a new approach to risk-taking in research and innovation policies.
This means accepting failure as a necessary part of learning and supporting high-risk, high-reward research alongside excellent fundamental science.
We need to protect Europe’s strong foundation in basic research, but it should be complemented by mechanisms that allow bold ideas to move faster from the lab to real-world application.
The public sector cannot – and should not – carry this risk alone. Public-private collaboration is essential.
An example from Denmark is our relatively newly announced quantum fund, 55 North, that has a total budget of one billion Danish kroner. Half of this funding comes from the private sector.
This kind of blended finance is precisely what Europe needs more of: Public money crowding in private investment, rather than replacing it.
We also need to rethink our approach to dual-use and defence tech.
The current framework programme for research and innovation, Horizon Europe, is for civil research and innovation alone.
During the Danish Presidency, we underlined the need to explore ways of using synergies between civil and defence-related research and innovation. And I will continue to do so.
We need to be realistic and take our security into our own hands.
This means ensuring Europe’s ability to defend ourselves – and our democratic values – while pursuing scientific and technological progress.
I believe Europe have some of the best societies to live in. We need to be able to protect that.
And if we want our technologies to stay and grow here, we need to also make Europe the best place in the world to scale innovative companies.
Europe is in many ways a stable continent in an unstable world.
In Denmark and during our EU Presidency, we have worked towards a response to that uncertainty. By strengthening Europe’s competitive power and our ability to stand on our own to protect everything we have built over decades.
We know prediction is hard – especially when it comes to an uncertain future. But the computer scientist, Alan Kay, once said:
“The best way to predict the future is to invent it.”
I truly believe Europe has the knowledge, the talent and the values to do exactly that.
Thank you.
