The Guild publishes recommendations for a renewed European Research Area

In the position paper published on 4 March 2020, the member universities of The Guild outline key priorities and principles that must be at the core of a renewed European Research Area (ERA).

The Guild welcomes the initiative of the Council of the EU and the European Commission to prioritise the development of a new ERA strategy. The renewed ERA must uphold scientific knowledge as a fundamental value for Europe, whilst promoting academic freedom and the autonomy of academic institutions as a basis for our democratic systems.

For ERA to be impactful and effective, politicians must be fully committed to renewing the ERA strategy with the aim of empowering national and European systems in supporting scientific excellence and developing knowledge-based societies. To demonstrate their commitment, ERA countries need to realise their goal of investing at least 3% of their GDP in R&I. The European Semester process should be used to monitor the public investments in research, including in universities, through institutional and competitive funding.

The Guild makes the following recommendations for the renewed priorities of ERA:

1. Achieve balanced development of the national research systems
2. Coordinate and support R&I systems’ contributions to SDGs
3. Continue improving conditions for the mobility of researchers
4. Ensure progress towards inclusive and equitable R&I systems
5. Ensure long-term policy approaches that cover all dimensions of Open Science
6. Foster bottom-up solutions in the development of career evaluation frameworks that reward Open Science practices
7. Build on the successful collaboration to develop research infrastructures
8. Promote the societal role of science through the empowerment of researchers

This article was first published on 04 March 2020 by The Guild.