Brussels, 11/03/2005 (Agence Europe) - On Friday, the European Commission adopted a recommendation containing a European Charter for Researchers and a code of conduct for the recruitment of researchers. These two instruments will help to compensate for the fragmentation of the careers of European researchers and allow Europe to make the most of its scientific potential.
It is estimated that an extra 700,000 researchers are needed to meet the objective of spending 3% of EU GDP on R&D and face the problem of the ageing work force in the research sector. Although the percentage of researchers as a proportion of the population as a whole has increased slightly in the EU, from 5.4 per 1000 in 1999 to 5.7 per 1000 in 2001, this is still a long way below figures for countries which invest more (United States 8.1; Japan 9.1). If it is to avoid the likely shortage of researchers, Europe must become more attractive to researchers and increase the numbers of women researchers. It must offer researchers long-term career prospects by improving employment and work conditions, by boosting the status of R&D as a career and by bringing in conditions which are more favourable to mobility within a career in research. The new European Charter for Researchers can help towards all of these objectives. The code of conduct for the recruitment of researchers aims to improve the recruitment of researchers and make selection procedures fairer and more transparent, and proposes various ways of assessing merit: merit should not be based solely on the number of publications, but on the basis of a wider range of criteria such as teaching, supervision, team work, transfer of knowledge, management activities and raising public awareness.
The recommendation is not binding and the practical implementation of these instruments will be left to the discretion of employers, investors and the researchers themselves. The Commission must, however, respect the principles and rules of these texts as part of its own relations with researchers. (The Commission's full text can be found at http: //europa.eu.int/eracareers/europeancharter).