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The board submitted its response to the European Commission’s Public Consultation "The European Research Area – the new ERA 4 years on: achievements, lessons learnt and the way forward". Other submissions for the Public consultation can be seen here and Eurodocs full response can be read here. Eurodoc is in general very positive of the ERA achievements and developments. However, two points in our response stood out: The importance of underlining that all relevant stakeholders, especially researchers and innovators, need to be included in the strategic work of the ERA, as they were woefully neglected in the documents. And secondly, the importance of highlighting that the fifth freedom of the European Union, that is the free circulation of knowledge, can only work if the precarious position of early career researchers is acknowledged and addressed.
The fifth freedom and the precarious position of early career researchers
The fifth freedom of the EU is the free movement of knowledge in the single market. We welcome that the European Research Area wants to further strengthen it. However, the most important element of the free movement of knowledge is the free movement of the people who create it, in other words, crucially, also of the researchers, including in large parts doctoral candidates, postdocs, and other ECRs. The board of Eurodoc emphasises that whenever researchers, especially doctoral candidates – but also other ECRs – lack legal worker status, they are forced to take undue risks, for example in terms of social security benefits and future pensions. The single market, however, should protect against exactly such challenges and risks for the individuals Ensuring that all research workers hold the EU-juridical worker status, including transversal access to social security benefits, thus becomes foundational to ensuring the promotion of the free movement of knowledge in the EU.
Inclusion of the ERA’s most important stakeholders – the researchers and innovators
The ERA Forum and the ERA Actions are suitable and effective platforms where the European Commission, Member States, Associated Countries, and stakeholder organisations can align their engagement, share their views, propose solutions, and identify factors hampering the development of a European Research Area. However, a stakeholder group that was hardly listed in the documents, is Group 4 – researchers and innovators For this reason, Eurodoc urges the ERA Forum to further strengthen the possibility of all relevant stakeholders to engage and to systematically ensure that all relevant stakeholders, particularly Stakeholder Group 4, are included in the different ERA actions.
This article was written by
- Pil Maria Saugmann, 0000-0002-3548-0134
- Hannah Schoch, 0000-0002-3987-4106
- Nicola Dengo, 0000-0003-2534-7265