Spanish Presidency Conference: MSCA DIverse REsearch Careers to Tackle Global Challenges

Project Information

MSCA DiReCT-GC

Grant agreement ID: 101131139

DOI

10.3030/101131139

Project closed

EC signature date 16 June 2023

Start date 1 July 2023

End date 30 April 2024

Funded under

• Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA)

Total cost

€ 317 770,00

EU contribution

€ 150 000,00

Coordinated by

FUNDACION ESPANOLA PARA LA CIENCIAY LA TECNOLOGIA, F.S.P., FECYT
Spain

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - MSCA DiReCT-GC (Spanish Presidency Conference: MSCA DIverse REsearch Careers to Tackle Global Challenges)

Reporting period: 2023-07-01 to 2024-04-30

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

Spain will hold the rotating EU Council Presidency in the second half of 2023. In this context, the Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology (FECYT), on behalf of the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (MCIN) will organize a Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) Presidency Conference. The event will be held November 14th and 15th 2023 in the city of Toledo.
The project MSCA DiReCT-GC (DIverse REsearch Careers to Tackle Global Challenges) aims at organizing the MSCA conference with the overarching objective of fostering the connection between science and policy making to better address societal challenges.
With the objective of raising the visibility of MSCA and establishing a link with the policy agenda, the conference will address ongoing initiatives in the realm of science for policy, the contributions of MSCA to societal challenges from a global perspective to a local impact, and the future of diverse and inclusive research careers, including professional paths to support evidence-based policy making.
Finally, a recognition of the MSCA best projects in terms of science for policy contributions will be present in the MSCA Awards Ceremony.
The specific objectives of the conference are the following:
• To foster the discussion of the relevance of science for policy in contributing to tackling global challenges and how MSCA as a bottom-up approach programme can support both researchers and policy makers in this rising field.
• To learn more about the state of play of the main actions carried out in the ERA Policy Agenda in relation with the promotion of attractive and sustainable research careers, balanced talent circulation and international, transdisciplinary and inter sectoral mobility across the European Research Area.
• To enable open and interactive sessions on some of the MSCA main features with the objective to come up with suggestions or preliminary ideas that could be implemented in the 2025-2027 MSCA Work Programme.
• To allow the gathering and networking of the main European and international actors involved in human resources, mobility and research career development in order to foster collaborations, synergies among the participating actors

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

Designing the agenda of the Conference:
For the preparation of the discussion panels, the profiles and contributors were discussed and agreed within the framework of the ad hoc Programme Committee following the initial strategy described in the in the MSCA DiReCT-GC project proposal.
The main blocks of the conference were:
• Opening keynote speech: The relevance of putting science to the service of policy making to contribute to advancing global challenges
• Policy panel 1: How is science contributing to shape EU policy in its mission to confront global challenges?
• Parallel workshops: The parallel workshops focused on different key aspects of the MSCA program relevant to its contribution to public policy design, with the aim of gathering recommendations that could be considered for MSCA to strengthen its role as a link between science and European policies, particularly those aimed at addressing global challenges.
o Workshop 1: The intersectoral dimension of MSCA
o Workshop 2: MSCA from global to regional
o Workshop 3: MSCA and inclusiveness
• Policy panel 2: ERA Action 4 and its connections to MSCA
• MSCA Awards: Science-Policy Pitch Competition
FECYT aimed at combining MSCA programme representatives, MSCA researchers and National Contact Points (NCP) to generate recommendations to the programme. This was achieved by assigning Marie Curie Alumni Association (MCAA) members as panelists and NCPs as rapporteurs of the sessions. Current and past MSCA fellows were also included as participants in the discussion panels.

Results of the conference:
More than 200 people registered to attend the conference although finally 176 participated on-site, representing 38 countries. This was a higher participation than initially envisaged (150).
The most common profile were MSCA project managers (45), followed by researchers -mostly MSCA fellows- (ca. 25) and MSCA National Contact Points (ca. 20). There was also a good representation of European, national and regional authorities (ca. 25).
Along the two days of the conference, the streaming had 2.559 views.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

The conference served to raise awareness about the opportunities that the MSCA programme offers to researchers for engaging with policymaking and to identify success stories in this sense. Based on the discussion panels within the parallel workshops, several recommendations were identified to contribute to more cases of MSCA having impact in policymaking.

Pictures of several discussion panels

Group Picture

MSCA Conference 2023 visual