EU commits to big to-do list for long-awaited research area

After six months of intense discussion, governments and university groups have backed almost all the priorities put forward as part of the creation of the European Union’s long-unrealised European Research Area (ERA).

The list covers many long-standing goals that could be realised by the single market for research, innovation and technology, such as promoting sustainable research careers and gender equality, bringing science closer to citizens and enabling the open sharing of knowledge.

That 16 of the 20 priorities put forward were selected has raised questions about how the ambitions will be resourced and implemented, according to some involved in the discussions.

Among the four not backed by at least half of the ERA Forum, made up of ministries and research organisations, was an action committing “support to the prioritisation, coordination and direction of research and innovation investments and reforms”.

“We welcome that many actions will continue, but I am afraid that some member states were persuaded to sign up to some actions without the intention to commit the new resources needed to implement [them],” said Matthias Björnmalm, deputy secretary general of the group of science and technology universities known as CESAER that is part of the forum.

Novelty seems to have put governments off backing some initiatives, according to Silvia Gómez, who joined discussions as secretary general of the Young European Research Universities Network. She said ministries had backed only those topics that staff were already working on.

“They understood the concept, but they didn’t have anybody already in charge of it in their ministries,” she said. “They couldn’t allocate a specific resource, so they said, ‘Oh, we can’t take care of that.’”

Sergej Možina, a Slovenian diplomat who represents EU countries as co-chair of the forum, said their focus during discussions on whether or not they had the capacity to follow through with the goals showed that ministries took their commitments seriously. He countered worries about a lack of resources by saying that some of planned actions would be easier than others.

“The actions are quite different. Some are low-hanging fruits, where we can immediately say ‘Yay, we did it’; some are strictly policy actions, which have to go continuously; and some are really new,” he said, adding that some of the actions would be combined or could be achieved by forum discussions alone.

Priority-setting has dogged the EU’s 22-year struggle to create a “borderless market” for researchers and their work, the realisation of which requires changes to swathes of national laws and voluntary contributions from governments.

Last year’s relaunch of the area made the forum the engine of reform, a body that governments said would help them better coordinate with each other and with pan-European organisations.

The latter tend to be far more enthusiastic about aligning national research policies. “We have committed to all the ERA actions, so we’re not surprised a similar approach is being taken by member states also,” said Stephane Berghmans, director for research and innovation at the European University Association, which represents other university groups in the forum.

“Despite the concern about resources, I think it’s good to see we are moving towards a realisation and an awareness that all of this is important to get a successful new ERA.”

But Jan Palmowski, secretary general of the Guild of European Research-Intensive Universities, said tough decisions would lie ahead. “We finally have a framework. The next few months all of us need to focus on what they actually mean: for stakeholders, for governments, both at the national and European level.

“We can all agree that we want to have more attractive academic careers, but a lot of this will be framed nationally by salary issues, by structural issues, and there is only so much Europe can do. What will the European dimension add to that discussion and aspiration?”

ben.upton@timeshighereducation.com