“We need to relaunch research and innovation” said Enrico Letta at yesterday’s Research Matters event, emphasising that he is a “big supporter” of the campaign. Letta penned a high-level report on the European Single Market where he called for a ‘fifth freedom’ enabling the free movement of knowledge to enhance research, innovation and education across Europe.

In the scope of the EU Framework Programme for Research and Innovation (R&I), Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) have been instrumental in boosting the mobility, training, skills and career development of researchers across Europe. These are key enablers for the free movement of R&I. It has also fostered groundbreaking research, that moves the frontier of knowledge.

In line with the above, YERUN fully endorses the joint statement ‘We need much more MSCA!’ and calls for continuation and reinforcement of the MSCA in the next framework programme (FP10).

In YERUN’s policy paper FP10: Attractive, Impactful and Inclusive, MSCA is highlighted as a key success: “FP10 should prioritise a research-oriented approach aimed at making the programme attractive to all researchers without leaving excellent ideas behind due to lack of funding and sudden budget cuts or reallocations. The focus should be on strengthening and ringfencing the budget for Pillar 1 initiatives, namely the European Research Council and the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions, and on intensifying collaborative and interdisciplinary low-TRL research in Pillar 2. These research outputs will in turn reinforce the innovation pillar.”

The MSCA is a programme of crucial importance for our community of universities. YERUN proudly joins this effort to further emphasise the role of MSCA and the need to continue investing in pioneering research and talent development in FP10.

“The success of the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions and the European Research Council lie in their ability to attract global talent and fund the research ideas of tomorrow. These are the research findings that lay the foundations for innovation programmes for the future. In an uncertain world, the responsiveness and openness of [MSCA] to support novel, groundbreaking ideas is a huge asset to Europe.” Eevi Laukkanen, Research Manager at the Faculty of Social Sciences and Business Studies at the University of Eastern Finland 

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Organisation endorsing this statement:

AURORA, CESAER, Coimbra Group, epso, EuroTech – University Alliance, EU-LIFE, EUA – European University Association, The Guild of European Research-Intensive Universities, ise: Initiative for Science in Europe, LERU – League of European Research Universities, Marie Curie Alumni, Science Europe, YERUN – Young European Research Universities Network.