ESF and EUROHORCS set out plans for a successful ERA
The European Commission's Green Paper on the European Research Area (ERA) is a 'good start', but overlooks many important players and so misses important opportunities, according to the European Science Foundation (ESF) and the Heads of the European Research Councils (EUROHORCS). The two organisations drew up their opinion on the Green Paper in response to the EU's Commissioner for Research Janez Potocnik's call for public comments on the proposals. 'The Commission's analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of the European Research System (ERS) concentrates too much on the perspective of the Commission's role and on that of governments and intergovernmental structures,' commented Dr John Marks, Chief Executive of the ESF. According to the organisations, the paper fails to take fully into account the role of other stakeholders, such as the national research funding organisations, as well as other European bodies, the private sector and non-European research systems. The ESF and EUROHORCS believe the EU should put more money into basic research, through such instruments as the European Research Council (ERC), and reduce bureaucracy if it wishes to promote competition and boost the quality of research undertaken. Furthermore, Member States need to play a greater role in reducing fragmentation by working together to develop common strategies and policies. 'The national players, including research funders and research performers on the one hand and governments on the other, have to implement a common strategy to increase their efforts to remove the institutional barriers such as the shortage of human and monetary resources, to adopt common peer review systems, to implement jointly funded schemes and ease the sharing of research infrastructure,' said Pär Omling, President of EUROHORCS. The organisations set out 11 activities and measures which they believe will strengthen the ERA. Many of these are designed to boost researcher mobility, such as the call for more 'money follows researcher' schemes and giving foreign EU researchers the chance to apply for funding from other countries. Young researchers are also covered in the recommendations, with boosting the standards of PhD training programmes and providing better career path options for young scientists both included in the list. 'Both the Commission and the national institutions have to strongly increase their efforts to attract more young people into science and research and to keep them in the system,' the organisations write. The organisations also highlight the importance of global research, with one of their priorities being to develop and foster cooperation schemes which go 'beyond the borders of the ERA towards a global research area (GLOREA)'.