In this opinion piece Pierre Barthélemy, Cefic executive director research and innovation, explains how Europe can close the gap on its global competitors in R&I and how the Commission’s next R&I framework programme, FP9, can help bring this about.Competitiveness and solutions to societal challenges are amongst the key priorities of the European Commission, directly addressing the concerns of the citizens. Horizon 2020 has been quite ambitious in tackling some of the societal challenges. However, in order to be more effective we should be even more ambitious about research and innovation.  Innovation can have an impact in all three dimensions of sustainable development: society, environment and the economy. Key focus areas for the chemical industry are energy and climate change, and resource scarcity, meaning that much of our innovation takes place in resource efficiency, circular economy and process intensification.The current structure of Horizon 2020 meets the need to get support for the entire “innovation value chain”— from front line research to breakthrough technology innovation and on to pilot scale demonstration of emerging solutions.   We need evolution, not revolution.  So, the next EU R&I Framework Programme should be built on Horizon 2020’s achievements. Moreover, the Commission should increase significantly the overall EU budget for research and innovation, strengthen the EU industrial leadership to guarantee sustainable application and implementation of European research, and continue financial incentives in the form of grants for all actors of the value chain, including small and large companies. Last but not least it should strive for better alignment among EU programmes and national initiatives.Industry lies at the core of the research and innovation ecosystem, and this applies even more so for the chemical industry, which is an enabler for many value chains.  Open innovation, based on collaboration with academia, research & technology organisations (RTOs), start-ups and SMEs, as well as customers, is a daily practice for us. Industry delivers impact. It takes science and knowledge out of the lab and deploys it on a wide scale, turning research and innovation into jobs, growth and benefits for citizens.The contractual public private partnerships, such as SPIRE and the Joint Technology Initiatives, and the bio-based industries joint undertaking (BBI), are one way industry can help make the EU research programmes more effective. These are unique platforms, pooling the diverse capabilities of both public and private partners and creating the critical mass for innovative breakthroughs. They also leverage the necessary funds for large-scale European projects within and beyond the research framework programmes.