In the last thirty years, Europe’s research community has grown to be more networked and collaboration-minded. Businesses have started to see European supported research as an opportunity to engage in open innovation. Research, development and innovation in manufacturing have been a key activity area throughout this entire period. Dedicated collaborative research and innovation partnerships emerged as new paradigms to leverage business investment and increase researchers’ orientation towards entrepreneurship and new collaborative business ventures. The paper provides a brief overview of European funded research in manufacturing in the past thirty years and highlights key developments and successes.