Brussels, 29/05/2015 (Agence Europe) - On Friday 29 May, the European research ministers adopted the roadmap which aims to guide the member states in their continued implementation of the European Research Area (ERA) for the years 2015-2020.
The member states are appropriating ERA 15 years after its official launch, but the roadmap is “nothing new”, the League of European Research Universities (LERU) states.
The roadmap identifies eight priority actions which should be included in the national strategies by mid-2016 and brought into being by 2020. The Latvian Presidency of the Council and the European Commission described it as a “new chapter” in ERA's history, designed to make this project finally “fully operational”, though the idea emerged in the mid-1970s, as Latvian Minister for Education and Science Marite Seile pointed out after the Competitiveness Council.
Although the conclusions adopted state that these priority actions should be pursued by all, they stress that the “national research and innovation systems across Europe have different characteristics and features, and that it is up to the member states to decide on the approaches which are best suited to their systems”.
Everybody is happy with this voluntary approach to setting ERA in place except Vienna, which told the meeting that more binding objectives would have been a better guarantee of a full implementation of the roadmap. Commissioner for Research Carlos Moedas expressed a similar view, announcing (with no reference made to it in the conclusions of the Council) that a conference would be held in June 2016, to give the member states the opportunity to present the national strategies designed to reflect all of ERA's priorities. In order to evaluate the implementation of the roadmap, the Council has asked the European Research Area and Innovation Committee (ERAC) to propose a series of key indicators by the end of this year.
The eight priority actions, which aim to “have the greatest impact on research and innovation in Europe”, are: - reinforcing the evaluation of policies carried out in the field of research and innovation and seeking complementarities between the instruments already in place at EU and national level; - improving alignment within and across the joint programming process and the resulting initiatives; - making optimal use of public investments in research infrastructures, by setting national priorities which are compatible with the European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures (ESFRI); - using open, transparent and merit-based recruitment practices with regard to research positions; - correcting imbalances between men and women in research institutes and decision-making body; - promoting the distribution, use and uptake of scientific results; - promoting free access to scientific publications; - promoting international cooperation. (Jan Kordys)