The European Union Framework Programme (EUFP) is the most institutionalised form of supranational thematic programming in the world and the centrepiece of European Union research policy. Since 1994, the EUFP has also funded collaborative research projects in the social sciences. Surprisingly, little attention has been paid to its genesis, development, and effects in shaping the development of European science, especially examined by discipline or multidisciplinary fields. The EUFP is thus analysed here through an instruments-as-institutions approach that conceptualises the EUFP as an institution. Content analysis of the official documents of each funding cycle (n = 5) and a sample of European-funded educational research projects (n = 122) was analysed in conducting this research. The results show incremental ideational change of the EUFP's guiding ideas: from knowledge as an instrument to knowledge as a resource; within-the-EU to outside-the-EU internationalisation; and cooperation to an integration rationale of Europeanisation from the EUFP4 and EUFP5 (1994–2002) to the EUFP6 onwards (2002–2020). European-funded educational research contents are shaped by such representations of what is expected of European research. If the policy instrument steers European-funded educational research, ideas more than regulatory features significantly—though incrementally—change the direction of European social science. © 2023 The Authors. European Journal of Education published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
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