Effective public spending of scarce resources is essential for accelerating clean-energy technology research and innovation (R&I) towards net-zero emissions. The EU’s Strategic Energy Technology Plan (SET Plan), adopted in 2008, aimed to increase and integrate fragmented and dispersed R&I funding programmes at various levels by focusing resources on some promising low-carbon technologies. Since then, other governance initiatives have evolved, like the 2018 Regulation on Governance of the Energy Union and Climate Action (henceforth, the Governance Regulation). One objective of the Governance Regulation was to define and report how the Member States should address R&I linked to energy efficiency, renewables, greenhouse gas emission (GHGs) and grid interconnections. The European Green Deal launched in 2019 sought to make Europe the first climate-neutral continent, in part by aligning all new climate, energy and environmental initiatives to R&I. At the global level, the EU has also joined Mission Innovation, adopted at the time of the Paris Agreement, which aims to double public R&I spending in specific clean-energy technology areas. These various initiatives seek to steer and align R&I funding programmes at national and EU levels towards accelerating innovation in low-carbon technologies like clean hydrogen, batteries, carbon capture and storage (CCS) and renewable energy. This includes the EU Framework Programmes for research and innovation, and funds based on the sales of emissions allowances under the EU Emissions Trading System (EU ETS).