Report on the European Research Area: time for implementation and monitoring progress

In 2014, two years after the adoption of its Communication on A reinforced European Research Area (ERA) partnership for excellence and growth, the Commission reported that Member States and research stakeholders had made good progress in delivering the ERA. However, more efforts were needed to make ERA work, notably through the implementation of necessary ERA reforms in Member States and Associated Countries.

The ERA evolves around six priorities:
- More effective national research systems;
- Optimal transnational co-operation and competition, including ‘optimal transnational cooperation and competition’ and ‘Research Infrastructures’;
- An open labour market for researchers;
- Gender equality and gender mainstreaming in research;
- Optimal circulation, access to and transfer of scientific knowledge, including ‘Knowledge circulation’ and ‘Open Access’;
- International cooperation.

In May 2015, the European Council reaffirmed its commitment to a fully operational ERA and endorsed the ERA Roadmap 2015-2020, a living document to guide Member States in structuring their implementation of the ERA priorities at national level. It called on Member States to implement the ERA Roadmap through appropriate measures in ERA national action plans (NAPs) and strategies. Monitoring of ERA Roadmap implementation would be integrated into the ERA Progress Report 2016, on the basis of headline indicators proposed by the European Research and Innovation Advisory Committee.

To date, 24 Member States and five Associated Countries have adopted an ERA national action plan 2015-2020, and it is expected that all Member States will have their action plans approved in the near future. As the drivers of national ERA policy reforms, these NAPs give a rich insight into all forthcoming ERA strategies and corresponding policy measures in the Member States and Associated Countries.

The present ERA Progress Report summarises the state of play of ERA and the progress on ERA implementation over the period 2014-2016. For the first time progress on ERA has been measured for each country on each priority, on the basis of the ERA Monitoring Mechanism, a set of 24 core indicators jointly defined by Member States, research stakeholders and the Commission. The report also provides a first insight into the development of the ERA priorities, their link to the ERA Roadmap 2015-2020 and the main areas targeted in the ERA NAPs. The table at the end of the document provides the growth rates on the headline indicators. An accompanying Staff Working Document provides quantitative data on a set of indicators with additional policy relevant qualitative information.

EUR-Lex: SWD(2017)21: Commission Staff Working Document accompanying the report http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=SWD:2017:021:FIN

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