R&I stakeholders gave recommendations on research infrastructures, Open Science and research careers during a conference on the new European Research Area.
On 23 November 2021, the Slovenian Presidency of the Council of the EU published a report on the outcomes and recommendations of the conference ‘The New European Research Area – Towards a Responsible Knowledge-Driven Society of the 3rd Millennium’, organised on 26 and 27 October 2021 in Slovenia. The conference’s aim was to focus on stakeholders’ engagement in the New European Research Area (ERA), identifying current needs, and providing recommendations to support the implementation of the renewed ERA policy objectives. The goal was also to ensure that the Pact for Research and Innovation (R&I) in Europe and the ERA policy agenda work for all stakeholders.
During the conference, four ERA priority actions, including research infrastructures, research careers, Open Science and “ERA for Economy”, were discussed in four breakout sessions. Different stakeholders provided 41 recommendations in four workshop sessions.
The first workshop of the conference focused on Research infrastructures (RIs), which are key elements of the research and innovation ecosystem. The European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures (ESFRI) was created in 2000 to push the implementation of research infrastructures in Europe strategically. Since the establishment of ESFRI, 50 RIs have been created, including 23 Research Infrastructure Consortia (ERICs), mobilising around €20 billion across the EU. The stakeholders mainly discussed the financial sustainability of RIs.
Recommendations included, among others, the analysis of successful funding approaches by ESFRI and the need to increase national funding. Other findings are to consider the lead agency model to join national funding across Europe and consider alternative funding models, e.g. European Research Infrastructure Consortium (ERIC), in the case of TNA (Trans-national access funding scheme). Other suggestions focused on increasing visibility to show the relevance of RIs and the collection of best practices and evidence on the benefits of RIs for the wider society. A further recommendation was to update the Charter for Open Access to RIs.
The second workshop covered “ERA for prospective scientific careers”. Scientific careers have been a focus throughout the Croatian Presidency of the Council of the EU and the Presidency Trio of Germany, Portugal and Slovenia. The guest speaker, Helga Nowotny, Professor emeritus from ETH Zurich and former President of the European Research Council (ERC), stressed the importance of investing in individual researchers and basic research. She recommended to “put research and researchers at the heart of ERA”. Stakeholders suggested in the workshop to create appropriate working conditions, employment opportunities and job security, which are key measures to attract, develop, and retain research talents and to secure a balanced brain circulation. Other recommendations were to enhance online and physical mobility opportunities and to create and improve bottom-up network possibilities.
Two interlinked topics related to Open Science were discussed in another breakout session, the development of the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC), and the reform of the research assessment system. For EOSC, several recommendations were provided such as stakeholder engagement, the provision of high-quality training, the promotion of new curricula and profiles as well as the support and development of tools to gather and monitor data on research outputs, infrastructures and Open Science Practices. Recommendations for research assessments were, among others, the improvement of the research assessment system and stakeholder-owned initiatives.
The final session on “ERA for Economy”, focused on the design of ERA actions with an economic focus. A specific emphasis was laid on Common Industrial Technology Roadmaps (TRs) and Knowledge Valorisation (KV). The current complexity and fragmentation of the policy landscape have been identified as main barriers across stakeholder groups. Thus, the participants welcomed tools such as TRs “to act as a single source of information”. Another challenge is that researchers’ careers depend on research publications, hence interest to engage with industry is limited. When it comes to boosting innovation in SMEs, access to data could be an opportunity to engage SMEs in research. Open Science should be user-friendly for SMEs, and innovation in SMEs could further be pushed through dedicated capacity building and EU funding for long-term industry-academia collaboration. An additional obstacle represents the lack of industry representation. Engagement of all stakeholders is needed for a successful KV. Finally, the need for an ecosystem approach was presented, using ERA Hubs to amplify regional excellence and provide mutual learning opportunities.
The recommendations of the conference were shared with policymakers at the research minister’s lunch debate during the Competitiveness Council on 26 November 2021, where the ministers successfully adopted the framework and governance for the new ERA, both the Council’s Conclusions on the future governance of ERA and the Pact for R&I in Europe. The recommendations will also be shared with the ERA Forum for Transition. The upcoming EU Presidency Trio (France, Czech Republic and Sweden) highlighted that they would continue efforts of involving stakeholders in the implementation processes of the renewed ERA.