Page 2 - Lidia Borrell News Today

EU research commissioner Mariya Gabriel was called to Sofia on Tuesday to form the next government of Bulgaria, throwing a spanner in the works during a decisive time for EU research and innovation policy.

The European Research Council (ERC) is revamping its project evaluation process from 2024 in line with the EU-wide push for a less prescriptive approach to evaluating scientific impact, shifting away from the traditional listing of research posts held and papers published, to a four-page narrative CV.

On 21-22 November, members of the European University Association’s Expert Group on Science 2.0/Open Science (EGOS) met in Braga, Portugal, and online for the final meeting of the group in its current composition.

The European Research Area (ERA) Forum is about to enter its implementation phase, after mapping out priorities across twenty R&I policy actions proposed by the European Commission.

Thailand and the EU last week signed off a new scheme allowing researchers from Thailand to join European Research Council-funded projects. ERC already has a number of such arrangements with countries including Australia, Brazil, China, India and the US, but this is the first time it has cooperated with Thailand’s National Higher Education, Science, Research and Innovation Policy Council.

After months of anticipation, the European Commission is still not ready to announce who will be stepping into Jean-Eric Paquet’s shoes at the research and innovation directorate and deputy director general Signe Ratso has taken on the role until the matter is settled.

MEP Christian Ehler is pushing for a pilot of an EU programme to support researchers at risk, but the European Parliament and the European Commission currently do not see eye to eye on the criteria for defining “at risk”.

EU science ministers today signed off an agreement backing research assessment reform in Europe, alongside conclusions on open science, international cooperation and Horizon Europe missions. In a meeting in Luxembourg, the 27 ministers acknowledged it’s time for the EU to revamp how it evaluates research, putting more weight into the quality of research outcomes rather than qualitative indicators such as journal impact factors and number of citations.

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.

EU looks to be ahead of the game when it comes to regulating digital content sharing platforms, after EU Council and European Parliament reached a deal on the Digital Services Act (DSA) last weekend. A few days after the policymakers reached agreement, Elon Musk, billionaire CEO of Tesla and SpaceX bought Twitter for $44 billion, saying he would go in the opposite direction and relax the platform’s content moderation policies.