The European Research Area – intelligence circulates so science can advance

In 2000, the Member States of the European Union adopted the Lisbon Strategy. Among other aspects, this stipulated that 3% of states' GDP should be spent on research and development. The Lisbon Strategy also sets out the founding principles of the European Research Area (ERA) which is a somewhat less well-known dimension. The Heads of State and Governments agreed "research activities at national and Union level must be better integrated and coordinated to make them as efficient and innovative as possible to ensure Europe offers attractive prospects to its best brains". This document goes on to declare that "the instruments under the Treaty and all other appropriate means, including voluntary arrangements, must be fully exploited to achieve this objective in a flexible, decentralised and non-bureaucratic manner".

The idea is to "create a single market for research, modelled on the market for goods and services, in which knowledge and scientists can circulate freely", explains Anna Grimault, the French Ministry of Higher Education and Research's (MESR) project manager for the ERA. Alain Mermet, director of the CNRS's European and International Affairs Department (DEI) concurs, explaining that "this is a European cohesion space based both on shared values and on a research and innovation ecosystem that facilitates the free movement of scientists, knowledge and open science, while promoting gender equality, diversity and academic freedom". He goes on to point out that "this shared space is constantly evolving and takes time to construct", citing the target of 3% of GDP devoted to R&D as an example (although this has yet to have been attained a quarter of a century on from the Strategy's publication).

 "The European Research Area is still having difficulty finding a place in people's minds. This project is both structuring and invisible", adds Anna Grimault, who, among other responsibilities, represents the MESR on the ERA Forum set up in the framework of the reform of the ERA. This reform was launched with a Communication from the European Commission in 2020 and the 2021 adoption of a 'Pact for Research and Innovation' that concentrates on four main areas. These were prioritising concerted R&I investments and reforms, enhancing access to R&I excellence across the Union, taking up together the challenges of the green transition and digital transformation, and deepening the European Research Area. Anna Grimault calls this "a strategic plan with nineteen actions which Member States can then choose whether to take part in and which translates this pact into tangible terms". Gender equality, open science, reforming research assessment and improving research careers are just some of the measures posited. Other measures include investment, open science, reform of research evaluation and improving research careers. This dynamic led to the creation at the end of 2022 of the Coalition for the Advancement of Research Assessment (CoARA), with Sylvie Rousset, the director of the CNRS's Open Research Data Department (DDOR), a member of the steering committee.

Capitalising on infrastructure

As proof of how important the ERA is for the CNRS, the organisation's 'position paper' as regards the 10^th Framework Programme for Research and Innovation set to succeed Horizon Europe in 2028 maintains "its commitment to reducing disparities within the European Research Area", as Alain Mermet stresses. He considers that "this objective needs to be constantly reaffirmed" and, in this respect, believes it "essential to capitalise on research infrastructures which are structuring, catalytic and attractive elements of the ERA. European investment in infrastructure must integrate national investments and roadmaps along with international agreements". 

He also stresses the fact that the ERA "has now become visible and tangible. We share a common space with our European partners and carry out research with them on a daily basis – a key element in structuring the ERA. European research infrastructures such as the CERN or the ESRF's major facilities attract researchers from all over the world either because they bring together highly specialised expertise or because they're the incarnation of technological 'jewels' which attract top-level international scientists". 

He also believes the European Research Area "needs to aim to build critical masses of scientists around strong scientific themes, including in emerging fields and particularly through networks of excellence". He goes on to explain that France's Priority Research Programmes and Equipments1 , whether exploratory in nature or intended to accelerate certain technologies, "are part of this logic" although "work still needs to be done to articulate national programmes with the European dimension better to structure robust networks of scientists at the European Union scale that are capable of then taking these strategic priorities to the international level".

From 'Widening ERA' to Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions

The implementation of the European Research Area "is based on the Horizon Europe framework programme for research and innovation", explains Ms Grimault. "The Widening ERA strand2  includes the objective of financing coordination projects, networks of research management professionals and studies on male and female researchers' careers". She points out that the CNRS is responding to several calls for projects within this framework, "in the field of gender equality, for example". 'Widening ERA' is Horizon Europe's main programme for funding actions in the framework of the European Research Area and, in her view, other schemes like those that promote and enhance the mobility of researchers "are entirely in the spirit of the ERA".

This is very much the case of the Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) programme which has been financing collaborative or individual research projects in Europe and beyond for almost 30 years to drive and enhance the international mobility, training and career development of researchers. These have already provided support for 65,000 researchers under Horizon 2020, with Horizon Europe set to repeat the same success. Indeed, as Alain Mermet reveals, "the CNRS is both the biggest beneficiary and the biggest European provider of winning projects" with its total of nearly 900 MSCA winners since 2014.

• 1These PEPRs were launched in the framework of the France 2030 recovery plan for the technologies of tomorrow with the aim of bolstering French research's position in scientific fields that are crucial for effective technological, economic, societal, health and environmental change.
• 2Horizon Europe's 'Widening ERA' strand funds European projects aimed at bolstering the scientific capabilities of less well-endowed countries by reducing the gaps in research and innovation performance between Member States. It also finances projects that dovetail with the ERA's strategic programme, focusing on a variety of themes – research ethics and integrity, science and society, knowledge exploitation, and so on. The overriding objective is to construct a coherent, inclusive and competitive European Research Area.

Chloé Richard is a CNRS European project engineer and a member of the MSCA's national contact team. She explains that "MSCA projects are research projects that focus strongly on the mobility and training of scientists in all fields throughout all stages of their careers. This programme helps attract talent to Europe". She also explains that "the mobility rule applies to all MSCA actions linked to recruitment. The researchers recruited must not have spent more than a one year in the last three years in the country of the legal entity that'll be hosting them". She considers this form of international mobility to "contribute to the construction of the European Research Area", adding that "the training targets excellence and developing future generations of experts in specific fields on the European scale". She explains that "the salaries on offer are highly attractive to help draw the best talent in Europe" through weighting intended to adapt salary packages to different countries' standards of living.

From the MSCA to the ERC

One such winner is the biologist Jeanne Tonnabel. In 2020, she left her job at the University of Lausanne to join the Centre for Functional and Evolutionary Ecology in Montpellier on a Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant, before joining the CNRS two years later as a researcher. Jeanne Tonnabel says that this grant offered an attractive salary, enabled her to develop her career and facilitated both her recruitment at the CNRS and her success in obtaining an ERC 'Starting Grant' through a 2022 call. She believes her MSCA grant gave her "a lot of flexibility" in carrying out her own research programme and meant she could "consolidate the results" that formed the basis of her subsequent ERC application. 

Ms Tonnabel also explains that one of the reasons she applied for European programmes was her "impression that active policies were being implemented to promote gender equality". This was an important factor for a woman who reveals she had "difficult experiences at university". She stresses that "even though grants from these programmes are harder to get, it motivated me knowing I had as much chance as a man and that the selection process took equality into account", calling hers "a deliberate choice".

The European Commission will also be proposing a legislative framework scheduled for mid-2026 that will be legally binding for Member States and will "set common standards, particularly for careers", explains Anna Grimault. Ursula von der Leyen, the President of the European Commission recently announced that this ongoing reform will be an opportunity to enshrine academic freedom in European law. For her, this is a way of highlighting the European Union's values to attract scientists, particularly the researchers being prevented from going on with their work by Donald Trump's American federal administration.