The new European Research Area: a growing voice and role for the Coimbra Group
30 August 2024
Emmanuelle Gardan, Coimbra Group Office Director
As we approach the quarter-century mark of the European Research Area (ERA), let’s reflect on what we have achieved as Coimbra Group and look forward to what lies ahead. While our network has always fully supported the ERA, our accomplishments in the recent years are an indication of how far we have come as a community in embracing the opportunities presented with the renewal in 2020 of the ERA’s vision and ambition (cf. European Commission’s Communication on a new ERA and Conclusions of the Competitiveness Council of EU27 Research Ministers).
Our engagement in the first phase of the ERA had remained rather limited and very dependent on ad hoc invitations and consultations. The relaunch of the ERA made it possible for us to discuss openly with the Commission, Member States and other European R&I umbrella organisations about the needed renewal of governance modalities for the ERA. With one main goal for us: that Universities, as central actors of the ERA, be granted representation on equal footing with the EU institutions and countries, and with enough seats to reflect their diversity. We succeeded, thanks to the tireless diplomacy of the Slovenian Presidency of the Council of the EU, although the conclusions of the Competitiveness Council of September 2021 were much less ambitious than our position – and that of most of the European higher education sector.
Nevertheless, we can praise the current governance of the ERA for being more open, more transparent, more inclusive, and more structured – especially for stakeholder organisations like ours. As a registered ERA stakeholder, we now have a say on many matters that were before beyond our reach. The Coimbra Group indeed enjoys full access to all documents of the ERA Forum. This makes us fully engaged in the co-creation process, as we can review the proposals before they are being discussed and finalised, consult Coimbra Group members on future policies and initiatives, and share our insights with the members of the ERA Forum via the two delegates nominated by the higher education sector – at the moment EUA and YERUN, who have been doing a great job.
Furthermore, Coimbra Group has proactively harnessed the trust and credibility acquired by stakeholders in the new European Research Area, by taking on a more prominent role and greater responsibilities at various levels. This occurs for instance at the stage of the co-creation of the successive ERA Policy Agendas every two years (e.g. ERA Policy Agenda 2022-2024, the next one being under development). Here we have been notably advocating for (1) prioritizing policy actions that are sufficiently tangible and impactful for universities and their academic communities to feel the benefits of the ERA, as well as for (2) strengthening links between the ERA and the European (Higher) Education Areas.
This assessment of a growing voice and role for the Coimbra Group is especially true regarding specific ERA policy actions with direct impact on our members, such as the one on Research Careers (action 4) and the one on Empowering Higher Education Institutions (action 13) where the Executive Board, building on the expertise across our membership, purposely positioned our association as co-sponsor of the work (action 4) / co-chair of the expert subgroup (action 13) on behalf of the higher education sector, respectively with Portugal and with France on behalf of the Member States.
The ERA is not a smooth process. There is much margin for improvement and still much to criticize, first and foremost the lack of progress towards the 3% GDP target for R&D investment. This requires the adoption of policy agendas that are sufficiently focused and action-oriented to address the challenges that face our research and innovation systems. This also includes taking our responsibilities collectively and work hard towards the goal set for the ERA in the EU Treaties to achieve the free circulation of researchers, scientific knowledge and technology, and to become more competitive – as emphasized again by former Italian Prime Minister Enrico Letta in his report to the European Council earlier this year.
What is clear is that Coimbra Group universities stand ready to participate in this effort and contribute to the ERA!