Periodic Reporting for period 1 - ERA Conference (New ERA - Towards a responsible knowledge driven society of the 3rd Millenium)
Okres sprawozdawczy: 2021-09-01 do 2021-12-31
The policy conference “New ERA - Towards a responsible knowledge driven society of the 3rd Millenium Nature-based Solutions: From Innovation to Common-use” (short: ERA conference) was held in Brdo pri Kranju from 26 to 27 October 2021 and was part of the Presidency of the Slovenia to the Council of the European Union.
The conference was held as a hybrid event, onsite and online, and hosted leading scientists, politicians and entrepreneurs who shared their experience on how new ERA governance can be implemented to please everyone. It served as an important step in increasing the political visibility and popularizing European Research Area.
The ERA conference presents a key milestone in the whole new ERA governance stakeholder integration process - where the overall goal was to create a place for community building of ERA stakeholders, facilitating their ownership and buy-in of common ERA objectives. This was already reflected in the pre-conference one-minute video campaign, by structuring the conference according to points of interests of specific target sub-groups and inviting to share their views in advance, enabling stakeholders’ active participation, and by its follow-up through the conference recommendations.
The main objectives of the ERA conference were:
(I) fostering exchange between Member States (MSs), Associated Countries (ACs) and European Commission (EC) in relation to building a renewed ERA;
(II) giving a platform to stakeholders to reflect on the main challenges for effective and efficient implementation of ERA Actions; and
(III) providing recommendations (as outputs of the conference) to policy makers contributing to the design and implementation of the new ERA.
The conference was held as a hybrid event, onsite and online, and hosted leading scientists, politicians and entrepreneurs who shared their experience on how new ERA governance can be implemented to please everyone. It served as an important step in increasing the political visibility and popularizing European Research Area.
The ERA conference presents a key milestone in the whole new ERA governance stakeholder integration process - where the overall goal was to create a place for community building of ERA stakeholders, facilitating their ownership and buy-in of common ERA objectives. This was already reflected in the pre-conference one-minute video campaign, by structuring the conference according to points of interests of specific target sub-groups and inviting to share their views in advance, enabling stakeholders’ active participation, and by its follow-up through the conference recommendations.
The main objectives of the ERA conference were:
(I) fostering exchange between Member States (MSs), Associated Countries (ACs) and European Commission (EC) in relation to building a renewed ERA;
(II) giving a platform to stakeholders to reflect on the main challenges for effective and efficient implementation of ERA Actions; and
(III) providing recommendations (as outputs of the conference) to policy makers contributing to the design and implementation of the new ERA.
Majority of the work in this project was of an organizational nature, while other part was related to the preparation of content-rich recommendations.
Wide range of politicians, policy experts, commission representatives, scientists, stakeholder groups etc. were contacted and selected as speakers, panellists, moderators, inspirational speakers. And as the conference intended to display the best ideas for implementing the new ERA, two months prior to the conference a call was sent to various stakeholders for so called pre-conference one-minute video campaign where they were asked to respond to several leading questions that were later part of the parallel sessions at the conference.
The ERA conference had a steering committee lead by Ministry’s representative that oversaw the project from the beginning to the end and made all important decisions related to the organization of the conference, including review of the submitted one-minute videos and approval of their publication.
The closer the ERA conference approached, more and more focus was put into communication activities. This was done as part of the Presidency of the Slovenia to the Council of the European Union, as well as directly to different stakeholders. Information about the ERA conference was distributed via various networks and Commission Expert Groups, as well as Council’s ones. The use of social media was focused on ERA conference Twitter account and individual steering committee’s members LinkedIn accounts, information was shared via the official presidency website and a standalone conference website was set up.
The conference attracted around 150 physical attendees per day and a few hundred more via live stream. On the second day, four parallel “breakout” workshop sessions took place, focussing on different aspects of the ERA policy agenda. Sessions hold the following titles: ERA for prospective scientific careers, ERA for research infrastructure, ERA for economy and ERA for open science and all background documents with leading question for discussion were published on the ERA conference webpage well in advance.
A couple of weeks after the ERA Conference The Conference summary report and recommendations (short: Recommendations) were published with a summary of a large amount of ideas discussed at the conference by the policy officials, researchers, funders, research performing organizations and industry in the form of recommendations. The Recommendations were accompanied by a foreword from Commissioner Gabriel an Slovenian minister for research Kustec.
The conference results were presented at the ministerial lunch in the frame of November 2021 Competitivenss Council for their consideration.
Wide range of politicians, policy experts, commission representatives, scientists, stakeholder groups etc. were contacted and selected as speakers, panellists, moderators, inspirational speakers. And as the conference intended to display the best ideas for implementing the new ERA, two months prior to the conference a call was sent to various stakeholders for so called pre-conference one-minute video campaign where they were asked to respond to several leading questions that were later part of the parallel sessions at the conference.
The ERA conference had a steering committee lead by Ministry’s representative that oversaw the project from the beginning to the end and made all important decisions related to the organization of the conference, including review of the submitted one-minute videos and approval of their publication.
The closer the ERA conference approached, more and more focus was put into communication activities. This was done as part of the Presidency of the Slovenia to the Council of the European Union, as well as directly to different stakeholders. Information about the ERA conference was distributed via various networks and Commission Expert Groups, as well as Council’s ones. The use of social media was focused on ERA conference Twitter account and individual steering committee’s members LinkedIn accounts, information was shared via the official presidency website and a standalone conference website was set up.
The conference attracted around 150 physical attendees per day and a few hundred more via live stream. On the second day, four parallel “breakout” workshop sessions took place, focussing on different aspects of the ERA policy agenda. Sessions hold the following titles: ERA for prospective scientific careers, ERA for research infrastructure, ERA for economy and ERA for open science and all background documents with leading question for discussion were published on the ERA conference webpage well in advance.
A couple of weeks after the ERA Conference The Conference summary report and recommendations (short: Recommendations) were published with a summary of a large amount of ideas discussed at the conference by the policy officials, researchers, funders, research performing organizations and industry in the form of recommendations. The Recommendations were accompanied by a foreword from Commissioner Gabriel an Slovenian minister for research Kustec.
The conference results were presented at the ministerial lunch in the frame of November 2021 Competitivenss Council for their consideration.
The ERA conference featured several leading European policy makers and experts, including Mariya Gabrie - European Commissioner for Innovation, Research, Culture, Education and Youth, Simona Kustec - Slovenian Minister for research, Jean-Eric Paquet - Director-General of DG Research and Innovation, Manuel Heitor – Portuguisee Minister for Science, Frédérique Vidal – French Minister for Research and Innovation, Mr Pavel Doleček – Czech Vice-Deputy Minister for Research, Matilda Ernkrans - Swedish Minister for research, and many others. We were also very honoured that Prof. Helga Nowotny accepted the role of the special guest address.
The opening of the Conference by Commissioner Gabriel and Minister Kustec was followed by a ministerial and senior officials’ roundtable with the current and upcoming Presidency Trios on what Member States can do to make the ERA more effective and efficient. The incoming Presidency Trio underlined that they would ensure a continuation of efforts to actively involve stakeholders in the implementation process of the new, revitalized ERA. The main points of the ministerial roundtable can be summarized in one sentence: it is science that provides solutions to grand societal challenges, therefore, investment in basic/ fundamental research is essential, in fact, an increase of investment in all research fields is of the utmost importance.
The ministerial panel was followed by a thought-provoking speech by Professor Helga Nowotny, former European Research Council (ERC) president, who re-emphasized the importance of investing in basic/fundamental research and highlighted the crucial need to put research and researchers at the core of the new ERA.
The first day culminated in two stakeholder panels under the banner “Journey to the new ERA”. The panels considered the realities of implementing the new ERA. The first panel scrutinised the Pact for R&I and the second considered the wider ERA governance.
On the second day, the Conference was dedicated to parallel interactive breakout sessions, addressing some of the proposed ERA Actions from the new ERA Policy Agenda, namely from two Priority Areas: Deepening a truly functioning internal market for knowledge and Taking up together the challenges posed by the twin green and digital transition, and increasing society’s participation in the ERA .
The workshops were carried-out in various formats, ranging from classical hybrid (on-site and on-line in a single group) to parallel virtual and on-site sub-group roundtables. Altogether 41 recommendations were extracted and distilled through these discussions, which are presented in the Recommendations. The recommendations from each breakout session was reported back to the wider Conference in a plenary. No objections were raised against the recommendations presented and they vary from the visionary to the very concrete, but together create a firm basis for further discussions and implementation within each ERA Agenda Priority Area.
The opening of the Conference by Commissioner Gabriel and Minister Kustec was followed by a ministerial and senior officials’ roundtable with the current and upcoming Presidency Trios on what Member States can do to make the ERA more effective and efficient. The incoming Presidency Trio underlined that they would ensure a continuation of efforts to actively involve stakeholders in the implementation process of the new, revitalized ERA. The main points of the ministerial roundtable can be summarized in one sentence: it is science that provides solutions to grand societal challenges, therefore, investment in basic/ fundamental research is essential, in fact, an increase of investment in all research fields is of the utmost importance.
The ministerial panel was followed by a thought-provoking speech by Professor Helga Nowotny, former European Research Council (ERC) president, who re-emphasized the importance of investing in basic/fundamental research and highlighted the crucial need to put research and researchers at the core of the new ERA.
The first day culminated in two stakeholder panels under the banner “Journey to the new ERA”. The panels considered the realities of implementing the new ERA. The first panel scrutinised the Pact for R&I and the second considered the wider ERA governance.
On the second day, the Conference was dedicated to parallel interactive breakout sessions, addressing some of the proposed ERA Actions from the new ERA Policy Agenda, namely from two Priority Areas: Deepening a truly functioning internal market for knowledge and Taking up together the challenges posed by the twin green and digital transition, and increasing society’s participation in the ERA .
The workshops were carried-out in various formats, ranging from classical hybrid (on-site and on-line in a single group) to parallel virtual and on-site sub-group roundtables. Altogether 41 recommendations were extracted and distilled through these discussions, which are presented in the Recommendations. The recommendations from each breakout session was reported back to the wider Conference in a plenary. No objections were raised against the recommendations presented and they vary from the visionary to the very concrete, but together create a firm basis for further discussions and implementation within each ERA Agenda Priority Area.