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Earma 2023: Future of European Research Area is being considered
The European Commission is already starting to think about the next set of priorities for the EU’s European Research Area policy package, even though the current set has only recently begun to be implemented.
The ERA initiative was started more than 20 years ago to raise research standards in Europe, including by facilitating the free flow of knowledge and researchers. It is widely perceived to have produced improvements in its first decade, but been less effective in its second.
With this in mind, the Commission and EU member states spent months refining a set of priorities for 2022-24 to reinvigorate the ERA, in a process that resulted in 18 priorities winning sufficient government backing to be taken forward.
The selection process proved controversial at times, as the sector raised the alarm over limited support for proposed priorities such as protecting academic freedom. But it has also had significant impacts, such as spurring the reform of research assessment and plans to raise the profile of research management.
Much of the work of implementing those 2022-24 priorities remains to be done, but work on the next set is already underway, Commission policy officer Stijn Delauré said at the annual meeting of the European Association of Research Managers and Administrators in Prague on 25 April.
“Although we are now just implementing the current ERA policy agenda, 2022-24, we’re also starting to prepare the policy agenda for 2025-27,” he said.
“We are currently conducting a gap analysis at the Commission, as well as [at] member state level, and by the end of this year we will have come up with a first plan.”
The EU needs evidence and ideas to inform what should be included, Delauré added.
In relation to the current priority Action 17, which is feeding into projects to shape the future of research management, he said that questions for the future will include which elements of research management need to be included and how.
It is possible that this action could be combined with others, he suggested, such as one on research careers.
Research Professional News is media partner for the Earma 2023 conference in Prague. Read all of the coverage here.