What's going on?

Incoming research and education boss Iliana Ivanova will have long list of priorities to attend to, from fending off Horizon Europe budget cuts to shaping the next research framework.

Research organisations have expressed alarm over the 2024 budgets proposed for the EU’s research and innovation programme Horizon Europe and its academic mobility programme Erasmus+. 

Research Outreach was privileged to speak with Lidia Borrell-Damián, Secretary General, on her esteemed career in research funding and collaboration.

Potentially transformative positions on scholarly publishing have now been agreed by the EU’s member state governments, receiving a warm initial welcome from the academic sector.

European Commission’s new research head Marc Lemaître faces pressure to prioritise the future R&D programme.

The international centre has already attracted support from top mathematicians and politicians around Europe

The issues the research world will grapple with in 2023

The Coalition for Advancing Research Assessment, launched on 1 December, must maintain its initial momentum and expand its global reach, while trying to keep its hundreds of members engaged, said Karen Stroobants. 

Tackling climate change means ending prejudice against interdisciplinarity, say Guillermo Cisneros Pérez and Louise Drogoul. Sustainability, particularly related to climate change and its impacts, is the single greatest challenge facing our societies. Changing weather patterns are causing heatwaves, storms and droughts that are bringing huge suffering across the world.

Ahead of COP27 (the 2022 United Nations Climate Change Conference), leading European research and university organisations have joined forces to renew the call for collective, common global efforts for climate action, launched last year.

They are proposing a systemic approach where universities, national research performing organisations and research funding organisations work together, involving policy-makers, the business sector and non-governmental organisations, in Europe and globally.

Science Europe says all researchers and societies should benefit from opening up research. Science Europe, the association of major research funders and performers, has said it intends to work to better align European policies to promote open science and facilitate research across disciplinary and geographical divides.

There have been many initiatives to combat the distorting effect of research assessment exercises. The latest looks like it might work

Science Europe’s new values framework sets out ideals to aspire to, says Marc Schiltz.

Ministers sign off joint positions on international cooperation, research assessment, open science and Horizon Europe missions in Luxembourg meeting

After months of negotiations, research stakeholders in the EU are getting close to an agreement on a set of principles and commitments for reforming the way research outputs are evaluated.

The European University Association and Science Europe, the association of research funders and performers, will lead the drafting of an agreement on reforming research assessment. The exercise is part of efforts coordinated by the European Commission.

European research organisations have called on policymakers to provide more support for interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research, saying this kind of research is needed to tackle societal challenges but lacks funding.

With money finally flowing to projects, the next year will be a critical time to lay the foundations for beating cancer, adapting to climate change, saving the oceans and protecting soils

Leading research figures concerned EU policy agenda leaves too much in hands of member states

The culture of science needs to change to meet growing demands as research becomes more complex and puts greater stress on the research community, according to a recent statement from Science Europe, an association of 38 research organizations in 28 European countries.