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European Research Area (ERA) Policy Agenda

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The ERA Policy Agenda is a strategic framework designed to strengthen Europe’s research and innovation landscape by addressing key priorities like open science, research careers, and green/digital transitions through voluntary actions coordinated between EU members and stakeholders. Regularly updated, the agenda evolves through co-creation processes involving the European Commission, Member States and research stakeholders, with the 2025-2027 version building on the 2022-2024 actions while introducing new structural policies. Adoption occurs via Council Recommendations, with progress monitored through tools like the ERA Scoreboard and Dashboard to ensure alignment with the Pact for Research and Innovation.

ERA Policy Agenda 2025-2027

The policy agenda is structured in 11 ERA Structural Policies, which are long-term policies embedded in national and European policy, and 8 concise, policy-driven and goal-oriented ERA Actions, which address current challenges.

  • ERA SP1: Enabling open science via sharing and re-use of data, including through the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC)
  • ERA SP 2: Strengthening sustainability, accessibility and resilience of research infrastructures in the ERA
  • ERA SP 3: Strengthening inclusive and intersectional gender equality in the ERA
  • ERA SP 4: Making research careers more attractive and sustainable
  • ERA SP 5: Reforming research assessment
  • ERA SP 6: Upscaling knowledge valorisation capacities and activities
  • ERA SP 7: Global Approach to R&I
  • ERA SP 8: Making the strategic energy technology (SET) plan a key thematic component of the ERA
  • ERA SP 9: Improving the articulation between R&I and higher education within the ERA and unleashing the full potential of European R&I ecosystems
  • ERA SP 10: Enhancing trust in science through citizen participation, engagement and science communication
  • ERA SP 11: Improve EU access to excellence
  • ERA Action 12: Equity in open science
  • ERA Action 13: Advancing the European Science for Policy (S4P) ecosystem
  • ERA Action 14: Facilitating and accelerating the responsible use of AI in science in the EU
  • ERA Action 15: Enhancing research security
  • ERA Action 16: Accelerating R&I investments for Europe’s industrial transformation and competitive sustainability
  • ERA Action 17: Accelerating new approach methodologies (NAMs) to advance biomedical research and testing of medicinal products and medical devices
  • ERA Action 18: Developing a coherent and coordinated framework for a European approach to integrity and ethics in R&I in the face of emerging challenges
  • ERA Action 19: Empowering R&I: A new era in research management

2022-2024

As part of the ERA communication, the European Commission has published a set of 20 voluntary ERA Actions for the time period of 2022 to 2024. The ERA Actions are supposed to be implemented by the European Member States and the countries associated to ERA in support of the first key achievement of the new ERA, the Pact for Research and Innovation, and are therefore grouped into the four priority areas defined in the Pact for Research and Innovation:

  1. Deepening a truly functioning internal market for knowledge
  2. Taking up together the green transition and digital transformation and other challenges with impact on society, and increasing society’s participation in the ERA
  3. Enhancing access to research and innovation excellence and enhancing interconnections between innovation ecosystems across the EU
  4. Advancing concerted research and innovation investments and reforms

The ERA Policy Agenda, annexed to the Council conclusions on the ERA governance, sets out 20 concrete ERA Actions for the period 2022-2024 to contribute to the priority areas defined in the Pact for Research and Innovation.

  1. Enable Open Science, including through the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC)
  2. Propose an EU copyright and data legislative framework for research
  3. Reform  the Assessment System for research, researchers and institutions
  4. Promote attractive research careers, talent circulation and mobility
  5. Promote gender equality and foster inclusiveness
  6. Protect academic freedom in Europe
  7. Upgrade EU guidance for a better knowledge valorisation
  8. Strengthen research infrastructures
  9. Promote international cooperation
  10. Make EU research and innovation missions and partnerships key contributors to the ERA
  11. An ERA for green transformation
  12. Accelerate the green/digital transition of Europe’s key industrial ecosystems
  13. Empower Higher Education Institutions
  14. Bring Science closer to citizens
  15. Build-up research and innovation ecosystems to improve excellence and competitiveness
  16. Improve EU-wide access to excellence
  17. Enhance public research institutions’ strategic capacity
  18. Support the development of EU countries’ national processes for the ERA implementation
  19. Establish an ERA monitoring system
  20. Support research and innovation investments and reforms

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