ERAC stakeholder meeting on Sept 13

The European Research Area Committee (ERAC) organised a stakeholder meeting on Sept 13 to launch the public consultation on the European Research Area (ERA).

In her motivation speech to approx. 100 participants representing the member states and European stakeholder organisations, Commissioner Máire GEOGHEGAN-QUINN stressed that in the present difficult times she was determined to arrange the widest ever consultation of stakeholders in shaping her directorate's work for the future. She feels that the commitment to the ERA is THE strong signal to the markets. The "unified" European Research Area to be achieved by 2014 is expected to heal the economic crisis in Europe – and the new research framework programme Horizon 2020 to "incentivise" ERA behaviour to drive European economic recovery (link to speech).

The focus of the meeting was on identifying "untapped potentials" for ERA development and of obstacles – in particular those not directly related to funding - that hamper fast progress towards its establishment. Six sessions discussed various aspects of the ERA including Governance, Researchers, Cross-border cooperation, Research Infrastructures, external dimension of the ERA and Knowledge transfer. Optimised European governance structures, Structured PhD programmes, European legal frameworks for social security and companies, European Infrastructures, and"Simplification" were keywords in the discussions. A summary of the discussion will be reported in the next issue of LINK.