Initiative for Science in Europe (ISE) started a petition asking for a more ambitious budget allocation to Horizon Europe. ISE kindly invites researchers, students and research organisations to sign the petition to their representatives in local governments and to the European Council.

You can sign the petition here.

On 22 January, the press conference ‘Europe’s role in leading response to the climate emergency’ was held during the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum. The topic discussed was the following ‘How to build a more sustainable World?’.  Among the speakers were Mauro Ferrari, President of the European Research Council (ERC), and Mariya Gabriel, Commissioner for Innovation, Research, Culture, Education and Youth.

The European Commission has put climate change at the top of its agenda with the European Green Deal. During the press conference, Commissioner Mariya Gabriel presented the European Green Deal as a priority for the decade ahead: ‘becoming the first World climate neutral continent by 2050 is the greatest challenge and opportunity of our times’. In order to tackle climate change, the Commissioner for Innovation, Research, Culture, Education and Youth wants to secure European citizens engagement by focusing on training and education. Although she acknowledged that climate change is a great challenge, it is also an opportunity to show Europe’s global leadership if Europe succeeds to join efforts and actions.

Commissioner Mariya Gabriel also presented the creation of the European Innovation Council (EIC) as an asset to tackle climate change issues. Indeed, she underlined that 70% of EIC’s budgets is dedicated to SME’s in order to help them in their transition to reach sustainability. Although the Green Deal is ambitious, it preserves a human centric approach. Mariya Gabriel insisted on the inclusiveness of the EIC’s package of measures and the need to take into considerations the realities for companies.

‘Very often we are focused on the costs for actions, but we need to think more about the costs of non-action.’’

– Mariya Gabriel

Commissioner for Innovation, Research, Culture, Education and Youth

For his part, Professor Mauro Ferrari agreed with Mariya Gabriel on the need to invest in science, research and youth, as well as to join efforts to achieve climate neutrality by 2050. The ERC President promoted cooperation between scientists from different fields, underlying the need to unite to tackle the climate change issue. The ERC funds science and ‘bottom up’ research ‘to create bridges’ according to M. Ferrari.

To conclude, ‘synergy’ was the keyword of this press conference, as both speakers have repeatedly used this expression to emphasise the need to cooperate and unite in the fight against climate change.

Watch the full press conference here.

On 5 February was held the last meeting of the Open Science Policy Platform (OSPP). Wolfram Koch, EuChemS representative, attented the meeting in Brussels on behalf of EuChemS.

The OSPP is an Advisory Group representing European research and innovation stakeholders with the mandate to provide advice on the development and implementation of Open Science (OS) policies in Europe. The EU Commission underlined the asset provided by feedback from stakeholders on Open Science. However, the renewal of the mandate is still unknown, as well as its potential reorganisation.

The Director General Research and Innovation, Jean-Eric Paquet, emphasises the strong commitment of the Commissioner for Innovation, Research, Culture, Education and Youth, Mariya Gabriel, to Open Science. Indeed, Open Science will be the core challenge of the new Commission ‘Green Deal’.

The OSPP also discussed the creation of a “registry of pilots and implementations to inspire best practices and new assessment mechanisms for Open Science.” The creation of this registry is a call for action on pilots and implementations of responsible metrics to inspire best practices and new assessment mechanisms for Open Science. Such a shift would enhance open knowledge practices in scholarly research. Among the benefits of this registry can be listed: the promotion of an ethical research conducted with integrity and more transparency, recognition of diverse outputs and contributors, easy access of research findings (data, publications, methods, e.g.) as well as an active engagement with the public.

Last, but not least, the preparation the final report of this mandate occupied a large a part of this OSPP meeting and first version was drafted.

Read the news here.

You can check the Open Science Policy Platform website here.