Consultation on the ERA Framework
Areas of untapped potential for the development of the European Research Area (ERA)
The European Commission (EC) recently (13 September 2011) launched its public consultation on the European Research Area (ERA) Framework. Your views are sought by the EC through a questionnaire which can be accessed through here.
It is important that the Irish research community gives its views to the EC as this consultation forms an important part of ongoing work to establish the European Research Area (ERA) across Europe.
The European Council, in February this year concluded, that:
"Europe needs a unified research area to attract talent and investment. Remaining gaps must therefore be addressed rapidly and the European Research Area completed by 2014 to create a genuine single market for knowledge, research and innovation."
The topics to be taken into account in achieving the ERA, and on which the EC is consulting in its questionnaire, include
- Quality of doctoral training, attractive employment conditions and gender balance in research careers;
- Mobility of researchers across countries and sectors, including through open recruitment in public research institutions and comparable research career structures and by facilitating the creation of European supplementary pension funds;
- Cross-border operation of research performing organisations, funding agencies and foundations, including by ensuring simplicity and mutual coherence of funding rules and procedures, building on the work of stakeholders, funding agencies and their representative organisations;
- Dissemination, transfer and use of research results, including through open access to publications and data from publicly funded research;
- Opening of Member State and Associated Countries operated research infrastructures to the full European user community;
- Completion or launch by 2015 of the construction of 60% of the priority European research infrastructures currently identified by the European Strategy Forum for Research Infrastructures (ESFRI), increasing the potential for innovation of these;
- Consistency of EU and national strategies and actions for international cooperation in science and technology.
For further information and to respond to the questionnaire, please click here.
