The European Science Foundation (ESF) is an association under the local laws of Alsace–Moselle (a region in the eastern part of France), foundation only by name and not in legal status or function.

Its office is in Strasbourg. In 2025, the association has 10 members from 8 countries: Belgium, Bulgaria, France, Hungary, Luxembourg, Romania, Serbia and Türkiye.

Since the dissolution of the original intergovernmental European Science Foundation in the 2010s with the transfer of its former coordination functions to Science Europe, the Strasbourg-based Alsace–Moselle association has operated primarily as an administrative service provider. Its activities centre on coordination, accounting and dissemination in Horizon 2020/Horizon Europe project consortia. Contrary to what its name suggests, the association has no core institutional funding and relies largely on short-term contracts and project management fees; publicly available information indicates that it has no diversified revenue streams beyond these temporary projects. Membership contributions, if any, represent only a minor share of income (ESF does not disclose membership fee amounts or income), and would derive solely from its two full members in Bulgaria and Luxembourg. Unlike the foundation it once was, the association today functions under a project-dependent model that provides limited financial stability and restricts its capacity for long-term planning. The strategic positioning of the Alsatian association appears to depend largely on the credibility and brand of the former foundation.

In 2008, EUROHORCs (European Heads of Research Councils; ceased in 2011 when its members established Science Europe) published a roadmap for a more competitive European Research Area. The ESF served as EUROHORCs’ implementation agency for funding and coordination instruments, which were wound down in 2011–2014 as national research organisations left ESF’s pooled model; no equivalent intergovernmental scheme has been re-established at ESF level.

However, over the same period, EU research funding was consolidated within the European Commission’s framework programmes, notably Horizon 2020. The programme, launched in 2014 with a budget of nearly €80 billion (around €30 billion more than the preceding Commission's Seventh Framework Programme), was designed to streamline EU research and innovation initiatives under a single framework, strengthen Europe’s global competitiveness, and address major societal challenges through coordinated funding at Union level.

ESF no longer performs its former role of running funding programmes for EUROHORCs. Instead of consequential termination, an association under the local laws of Alsace–Moselle (an eastern region of France with a distinct local-law regime) operates under the former foundation’s name, focusing mainly on administrative project services, while applying to participate in temporary Horizon Europe projects to secure funding, rather than providing funding as the former foundation once did.

As a result, the ESF of today is entirely different from the organisation that once coordinated European funding programmes, while continuing to use the same name.

Under ESF’s grant evaluation, the organisation runs a reviewer scheme whereby it outsources the intellectual evaluation work. External academics undertake the assessments, while ESF provides the administrative framework (direct email outreach to acquire reviewers, submission portal, deadlines). The reviewers are expected to volunteer their work or may receive an honorarium from ESF, a modest one-off payment as a token of thanks. Meanwhile, ESF earns a commission from the peer-review requesting organisation.