The Spanish Presidency of the EU Council is continuing its preparations for the meeting of the EU ‘Competitiveness’ Council dedicated to research, to be held on Friday 8 December (see EUROPE 13296/9). To this end, the Presidency has sent the Member States’ delegations a note on a monitoring report drawn up by the European Commission on the first 18 months of implementation of the European Research Area (ERA) Policy Agenda at European level. This report will be the subject of a Commission information note on 8 December.
The ERA aims to create a European single market for research, innovation and technology.
The ERA Policy Agenda sets out 20 concrete voluntary actions by the ERA to contribute to the priority areas defined in the EU Council Recommendation for a ‘Pact for Research and Innovation in Europe’.
In practical terms, the report takes stock, after 18 months, of the implementation of each of these actions, at Member State and associated country level.
According to the Spanish Presidency, one of the main conclusions to be drawn from the report is that the ERA Political Agenda is in full implementation phase, and that the Member States, associated countries and research and development bodies have indeed made progress.
The Presidency also welcomes the effectiveness of the ERA Forum as a co-creation body. However, it says that a longer evaluation period will be needed to obtain more robust results on European progress in achieving the ERA’s priorities.
The authors of the report point out that the document will now serve as a baseline for the future assessment of progress at EU-level.
The Presidency goes further, stating that this monitoring will also enable evidence-based policies to be developed.
Link to the note: https://aeur.eu/f/9qs
Link to the report: https://aeur.eu/f/9qt (Original version in French by Émilie Vanderhulst)