This is an important year for the European Research Area. The goals of the ERA have for more than two and half decades been key to EU ambitions to mirror the four freedoms of the single market (of goods, capital, people and services) with a fifth freedom of knowledge. But as yet this freedom of knowledge has not been realised.
To change this, the European Commission will propose a legally binding act in 2026. What can we expect?
Over the past 20 years, important progress for the ERA has been made. Examples include the creation of European large-scale infrastructures such as the European Solar Telescope and the alignment in standards and practices through the Human Resources Strategy for Researchers label awarded to 746 institutions.
Still, researcher mobility is impeded by very distinct national labour markets for researchers. And protections against undue interference into research and its use are increasingly uneven. In response, the ERA Act has in its sights a whole range of issues, including freedom of scientific research, gender equality, the free circulation of knowledge and researchers, research security, and the use of AI in research. The act has been subject to a public stakeholder consultation, which closed on 23 January.
To strengthen national commitment to R&I, the Commission is evaluating including a national 3 per cent R&D investment target. European member states had committed to this early in the ERA process, in 2003; but to date, average investment is still at only 2.2 per cent. If the target becomes legally binding, it might mean that only member states increasing their R&I expenditure to at least 3 per cent could access certain parts of EU funding instruments in Horizon Europe.
Scientific research freedom
Moreover, it is high time to strengthen the freedom of scientific research, not just in relation to current challenges (for example, in Hungary). In Germany, where the federal states are in control of higher education, the right-wing Alternative for Germany party looks set to win its first state elections this year; and in France, the National Rally party is leading in polls for the 2027 presidential elections. The key here is to enshrine the freedom of scientific research in a way that complements quite differing national legal environments and in a manner that is actionable. One idea being discussed is the creation of a European ombudsperson — proposed by the Guild of European Research-Intensive Universities as far back as 2021 — to call out transgressions speedily. Another is conditionality attached to EU funding.
The ERA Act might also codify common standards around research security. Currently, different national rules around limits to collaboration and the protection of data and research results differ widely, reinforcing an unlevel playing field for researchers — and the ERA Act could be an important opportunity to address this.
Last, but certainly not least, the Commission is considering introducing a new, ‘28th’ EU employment regime for researchers, to complement those of the 27 member states. Researchers and institutions could have the option of choosing an EU employment contract rather than a national one, taking these conditions to any new employer in any member state.
Don’t try too hard
It is not clear at this stage which of these and other priorities would be included in the ERA Act, and in what form. But there might be three guiding principles of prioritisation.
First should be added value. Whether the freedom of scientific research is included, or is introduced as a self-standing act as proposed by members of the European Parliament, should be decided by where the EU can be most impactful. Likewise, it makes sense to create a 28th employment regime only if it can be made sufficiently attractive for employers and employees. The history of the EU Resaver pension scheme, created to be portable across borders but taken up in very few places, is a salutary reminder of how difficult it is to create common conditions across all member states.
Second, it is important for the Commission not to bite off more than it can chew. The opportunity to create a legal instrument after more than 25 years should not tempt the Commission to put in it everything that we must resolve. It is much better to focus on two or three areas where a legal act can make a substantive difference than it is to have a smorgasbord of relatively superficial changes.
Finally, any act is likely to fall short if the sector does not also tackle the cultural challenges around the fifth freedom. Barriers to researcher mobility often lie deep within academic cultures and traditions, including, for instance, very different expectations for career advancement. Similarly, we see not only in the US that legal protections matter little when politicians can count on public support (or acquiescence) in curtailing the freedom of scientific research and institutional autonomy.
The opportunity of the ERA Act, therefore, is not simply in the removal of structural barriers to R&I. The Commission — and indeed stakeholders — should spend as much time focusing on culture as on legal change. Like any act, for it to be effective it cannot rest solely on the statute book — it must become a document of the lived academic day-to-day experience.
This article was originally published in Research Professional.
Jan Palmowski
Secretary-General of The Guild – A contemporary historian, he started his career at the University of Oxford before moving to King’s College London where he taught European politics and EU integration. He was Pro-Vice-Chancellor at the University of Warwick from 2013 to 2017. In this blog space, Prof. Palmowski engages with some of the wider questions around research, education, innovation and the EU. The views expressed here are his and not those of The Guild.