What is ERA?
What is ERA?
The European Research Area (ERA) is there to ensure a free flow of knowledge in Europe!
Its story dates back to 2000 when the European Union started to create the ERA as a vision of a developed, functional and interconnected research area without any barriers to collaboration between researchers across Europe.
The main motivation for this initiative was the need to increase European competitiveness, improving the coordination of research and innovationactivities at national and European level, developing human resources and making Europe more attractive to the best scientists from all over the world. A genuine single market with free circulation of researchers, knowledge, innovation and technology allows researchers, innovators, institutions and businesses to be mobile, compete and collaborate across borders.
Since its inception, the ERA has achieved important accomplishments. The development of European Research Infrastructures, the initiation of joint research initiatives, advancements in the removal of barriers to researcher mobility, and the facilitation of open and collaborative knowledge exchange, are excellent examples of those.
Recently, the EU Member States and the European Commission have revitalized this initiative with the realignment of the „New European Research Area“ and a whole new governance of the ERA, launched by the Pact for Research and Innovation in Europe. The Pact for R&I in Europe sets forth four overarching priorities for the realisation of the ERA. These priorities are specified into 20 concrete ERA Actions that form the ERA Policy Agenda for the period 2022-2024. This agenda calls upon the EU Member States and the European Commission to work together and achieve these goals through collaboration and coordination.
Interested in learning more? Visit the European Research Area Platform!
European Research Area Policy Platform:
a gateway for the ERA
In January 2024, the European Commission launched a new Policy Platform on the European Research Area (ERA), a dedicated one-stop-shop to provide a comprehensive overview of current ERA policies, activities and achievements.
The platform features:
- information about the state of implementation of the ERA Policy Agenda and its joint actions.
- insights into EU-wide activities contributing to make progress on the ERA.
- elements of the ERA monitoring mechanism, including interactive graphs showing the progress on ERA priorities as reported in the ERA Scoreboard and the ERA Dashboar.d
- a repository of key ERA-related documents and reports available to the public.
EU Member States, countries associated to Horizon Europe, and R&I Stakeholder organisations will be able to contribute to the content of the website, thereby supporting the ERA monitoring system by sharing information, data or documents relevant for assessing the state-of-play on the various ERA actions, both at national and EU-level.
The ERA Policy Platform is part of the new ERA governance framework and the Pact for Research and Innovation (R&I) in Europe.
The ERA Policy Platform is the main source of information regarding the 20 ERA Actions. The Inspiring ERA Information Hub, will be processing and analysing data collected via the platform. Moreover it will connect and facilitate the sharing of information on the ERA.
ERA Policy Actions
ERA Policy Actions
