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Strategic conclusions from the 12 and 13 March High-level Conference 'Unlocking the Power of Science Communication in Policy Making', co-organised by the Research Foundation Flanders (FWO), Fund for Scientific Research (FNRS), and Science Europe.

This statement presents some of the high-level outcomes from the 2023 High Level Workshop on 'Challenges to Reciprocity and Equitable Collaboration between Europe, Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean'.

Science Europe supports the scientific community in calling for caution and nuance in approaching the issue of phasing out the use of animals in research, and endorses statements by several stakeholders.

Researchers, research services, and other community members at Research Funding and Performing Organisations play a key role in establishing recognition systems through the research assessment processes that they implement. These recognition systems strongly contribute to determining what is understood as research quality and excellence. Based on the Science Europe Values Framework (published in July 2022), this paper provides practical recommendations and good practice examples detailing how research organisations can continuously improve the way they assess research and researchers. The recommendations help to embed our shared values and contribute to the evolution of research cultures in Europe.

On 22 February, Science Europe answered the European Commission’s consultation on the past, current, and future European R&I Framework Programmes. The response, developed in collaboration with the SE Working group on Horizon Europe reflects SE Member Organisations’ opinions and concerns regarding Horizon 2020 and Horizon Europe.  

Substantial discrepancies exist between European R&I capacities, and these are at risk of increasing. Leveraging the potential of Europe's existing talent, developing new capacities, and optimising and spreading R&I benefits are more important than ever. This Science Europe report makes a number of recommendations to support this.

Science Europe launches a vision for science communication and commits to working with its member organisations to strengthen their capacity and to support their efforts to communicate research more effectively.

Science Europe launches a framework of shared values that serve as a guide to contribute to fostering a forward-looking research culture within the European Research Area, and globally.

The new statement on Research Culture envisages an ERA that focusses on the quality of research and its processes, supports scientific freedom, and promotes social diversity and inclusion, acknowledging that these conditions will, in turn, foster a productive research system.

Science Europe Position on the Involvement of Stakeholders in the ERA Governance

Science Europe calls on research funding and performing organisations to continuously evaluate their research assessment processes to ensure that they are effective, efficient, fair, and transparent.

Science Europe advocates using the notion of ‘value’ of research. This is wider than ‘impact’ and reflects the intrinsic value of scientific research and its capacity to generate new knowledge. This statement provides a series of key principles and actions for policy makers and research organisations to help bring forward a new vision of impact assessment.

Science Europe is committed to playing a role in accomplishing the transition to Open Access in an efficient and sustainable way and encourages scientific institutions to disclose payments of Open Access publication fees by participating in the ‘Open APC Initiative.’ This paper highlights how this will help create a more transparent cost structure in the Open Access publication market and stimulate competition.

Science Europe is working to enhance the interoperability of research information systems. This publication sets out common principles to guide their development.

Horizon 2020 is a unique programme worldwide; it is widely appreciated and has an ambitious agenda. It can meet expectations as long as its nature as a programme capable of supporting excellent research is reinforced. Ahead of the interim evaluation of Horizon 2020, Science Europe shares the extensive experience of its Member Organisations, many of whom have decades of experience in setting up world-leading research programmes or are among the main beneficiaries of the Framework Programmes.

The recent legislative proposal from the European Commission to reform EU copyright law addresses some needs, but not to the full extent required. Science Europe calls for research and data mining exceptions to ensure that copyright legislation is friendly to research and innovation.

This Opinion Paper shows how arts and humanities research is at the heart of innovation processes. In this paper the Science Europe Scientific Committee for the Humanities advocates the need for a wider and deeper understanding of the concept of innovation, in order to better prepare Europe to tackle global challenges. The Committee points out ways to achieve stronger European leadership through the promotion of radical innovation by highlighting the contribution of arts and humanities research.

A major challenge in striving for energy efficiency is the selection of technological systems, particularly given the need to consider multiple environmental, economic and social concerns. In addition, the general public, policy makers and experts alike misunderstand the physical nature of energy and hence its efficient use. After decades of fragmented agreements, regulations, treaties, strategies, indicators, targets, directives and communications, the European Union (EU) in its Energy Union strategy needs to take the lead in restoring the energy debate to firm foundations: those of thermodynamics, the science of energy.

This position statement highlights the added value of Joint Programming Initiatives (JPIs) as perceived by Science Europe Member Organisations, and makes two recommendations on the future of joint programming: one with regards to the evaluation of JPIs, and a second one concerning their governance. The aim is to stimulate other stakeholders – including the European Commission – to join in this discussion.

This publication by Science Europe’s Scientific Committee for the Social Sciences addresses two audiences: scientists, especially those who have been traditionally more resistant to the OA approach, and policy makers. In it, the Scientific Committee for Social Sciences proposes a ‘Diamond Engagement’ concept with the three key principles: partnership; standardisation and interoperability; and enabling structures.

Open Access, as defined in the Berlin Declaration, means unrestricted, online access to peer-reviewed, scholarly research papers for reading and productive re-use, not impeded by any financial, organisational, legal or technical barriers. Ideally, the only restriction on use is an obligation to attribute the work to the author. Science Europe Member Organisation are committed to a shared set of principles on Open Access to ensure consistency and coherence in their efforts and activities.

In this paper produced by the Scientific Committee for the Life, Environmental and Geo Sciences, the Committee argues that in order to strengthen international collaborative research, the national research funding organisations should consider increasing their efforts to widen the participation of various European countries and global partners in multilateral schemes, whilst fostering interdisciplinarity and knowledge integration. Moreover, a bottom-up approach should be adopted in order to collect research proposals that contain novel ideas and solutions, captured directly from the research community and users, thus enabling open innovation.

The 2012 Communication ‘A Reinforced European Research Area Partnership for Excellence and Growth’ laid out the current approach for realising a European Research Area (ERA). As this approach is now being reviewed by the European institutions, Science Europe puts forward its analysis of Priority One of the Communication, in order to start a fruitful dialogue with the European institutions on the future of ERA policy. This analysis provides a practical example as to why the current ERA Communication approach needs to be thoroughly reviewed if ERA policy is to have a real impact.

Since its inauguration in early 2013, the Science Europe Scientific Committee for the Humanities has strongly supported Horizon 2020’s third pillar, Societal Challenges. The Committee realises the importance of the issues addressed, and the urgent need to find solutions to these pressing questions. The Committee is therefore committed to making the Challenges-approach successful.

In this paper, produced by the Scientific Committee for the Life, Environmental and Geo Sciences, the Committee highlights the lack of clear evaluation metrics for scientists working in multidisciplinary teams. The Committee devises also concrete recommendations to contribute to the elaboration of an appropriate evaluation framework and suggests four main categories of indicators that demonstrate success in multidisciplinary and collaborative research: data generation, analysis and knowledge management; the development of enabling tools for data handling; the added value of collaborative research, and acknowledging contributions in bibliometic analysis.