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Open call for input to launch soon, four years after last update
The European Commission plans to update its stance on the European Research Area, four years after its last refresh.
The ERA is the EU’s policy initiative for improving and harmonising research activities across Europe. It has been underway for more than two decades, and was revamped in 2020 to renew progress that had begun to stall.
On 30 August, the Commission announced that it “intends to publish a new communication looking at the progress achieved [on the 2020 priorities] and identifying the remaining challenges”.
The priorities in the 2020 refresh were: prioritising investments and reforms, improving access to excellence, translating research and innovation results into the economy, and deepening the ERA.
An open call for evidence on the ERA will launch soon, seeking feedback on the progress made.
One group’s stance
Separately, the Coimbra Group of multidisciplinary European universities published a post on its website considering the ERA as the 25th anniversary of its launch approaches.
Emmanuelle Gardan, director of the group’s Brussels office, praised the 2020 refresh for enabling the sector to discuss issues around the governance of the ERA with the Commission and EU member states, through the regular ERA Forum meetings.
“We can praise the current governance of the ERA for being more open, more transparent, more inclusive and more structured—especially for stakeholder organisations like ours,” Gardan said.
But she said there is “much margin for improvement and still much to criticise, first and foremost the lack of progress towards the 3 per cent GDP target for R&D investment”. EU investment in R&D has been stuck at around 2.2 per cent of GDP for several years, despite the bloc having had a target to invest 3 per cent for decades.