Development of the SET-Plan

This chapter assesses the making and implementation of the SET-Plan. The Plan was created in response to the decline in EU energy research and innovation funding, the lack of strategic innovation focus and the fragmentation in energy research programmes. Resolving these challenges would necessitate giving priority to certain technologies and project types, improving coordination and transferring greater funding competence to the EU level. However, in the main, these ambitions have failed. The number of prioritized technologies has mushroomed, while competence over funding has remained largely with the member-states and industry actors who differed in their interests and priorities. Funding has increased but has remained too scattered to enable all the SET-Plan priorities to be realized.