Progress in hitting ERA goals slows, study shows

Europe’s national research systems continued to become more effective, integrated and open during 2018, but progress on these and other priorities appears to have slowed down, a European Commission report has found.

The fourth edition of the European Research Area monitoring report, published on 18 February, describes “wide variation in national progress” in creating a fully integrated system and suggests new national benchmarks as a potential solution.

Despite their sluggishness, the near ubiquity of national action plans have increased postdoc mobility and, together with the use of the ERA Roadmap in guiding reforms, these are encouraging signs, the authors concluded.