Completed ALLEA projects

Access to Scientific Information

For current related work about Scientific Information please refer to the ALLEA Permanent Working Group on Intellectual Property Rights or our Working Group on E-Humanities.

Intellectual Property Rights

For current related work about Intellectual Property Rights please refer to the ALLEA Permanent Working Group on Intellectual Property Rights.

Open Access

For current related work about Open Access please refer to our Permanent Working Group on Intellectual Property Rights.

Science and Ethics

For current related work about Science and Ethics please refer to the ALLEA Permanent Working Group on Science and Ethics.

Research Integrity

For current related work about Research Integrity please refer to our Permanent Working Group on Science and Ethics.

Science Education

For current related work about Science Education please refer to the ALLEA Working Group on Science Education

Research Infrastructure

For current related work about Research Infrastructure please refer to the ALLEA Permanent Working Group on Science and Ethics, our Working Group on E-Humanities or our Working Group Social Sciences and Humanities.

Social Sciences and Humanities

For current related work about Social Sciences and Humanities please refer to the ALLEA Working Group on Social Sciences and Humanities.

 

Past ALLEA Working Groups, activities and themes

The following section contains information about ALLEA’s work in many fields of science policy as well as European cooperation. Please be aware that information on this page may be outdated.

European Research Area/ Horizon 2020/ Framework Programme 7

Increasingly, national science, research and higher education policies in Europe are being formulated in view of the ambition of building a European Research and Higher Education Area. ALLEA welcomes the strengthening of an autonomous ERA and of more subtle and more substantial science support tools under the Framework Programmes. It is one of ALLEA’s tasks to defend the role of basic science (in all fields of scientific inquiry), and to argue for the diversity of national research traditions as potential assets to be carefully evaluated. The promotion of better scientific cooperation and exchange also beyond the countries of the European Union is a prime concern for ALLEA.

European Young Academy

(Disclaimer) The European Young Academy was an ALLEA project intended to connect and to promote young European researchers across European research institutions. The project was discontinued as of March 2010.

In a rapidly changing research landscape, with forms of doing research and new fields and challenges emerging and with the European Research and Higher Education Area taking shape, the project “European Young Academy” (EYA) aims at giving a voice for the next generation of scientific leaders in Europe.
Traditionally, national academies have been promoters of top quality research sources of independent scientific advice and provided a platform for interdisciplinary exchange. The next generation of scientific leaders must equally be able to contribute to the Europe-wide discussion, across language and disciplinary boundaries, of the future environment and progress of research.
Some countries have established National Young Academies, others are thinking about similar models (see below).

The vision for a EYA includes the following core elements:
A virtual and independent  body which would give a select group of the very best early career researchers in Europe the opportunity to:
1. contribute critically and constructively to the process of building the European Research and Higher Education areas;
2. promote academic excellence, independence and freedom;
3. contribute to science policy debates;
4. increase the visibility of European research through public outreach;
5. enhance the potential of scientific collaboration across disciplinary boundaries,
making use of new forms and developing of communication to foster the dialogue between science and society in a European and global perspective.

Former Working Group Evaluating for Science/ Evaluation and Benchmarking

While the European Research and Higher Education Area is emerging, evaluation practices and policies are still very much linked to national traditions and institutional frameworks. ALLEA has been promoting in the past discussions about the necessity to engage at a European level also in terms of quality assurance and evaluation; the ALLEA Working Group Evaluation is producing European protocols for institutional evaluations and tackles the issues of university rankings.

 

Science and the Media

The communication on scientific advances and risks is one of the cornerstones for the building of a knowledge-based society: a passion for science as well as a better understanding of the opportunities and limits of scientific enterprise in improving living conditions for societies and individuals need to be stimulated. Adequate use of the media in improving the quality of science/society dialogues has been at the heart of an ALLEA Working Group which may be re-established as part of a more global  approach.

Science Landscape

In the 21st century, the role of Academies of Sciences (and Humanities) in the European and global research landscape may be in need of a redefinition: the all-pervasive nature of science in the emerging knowledge society – and the ever-present hope that science will provide relief to society’s ills – demands a new appreciation of the totality of science, including human and social sciences, such as it is typically assembled in the academies. ALLEA makes the case for the academies as guardians of independent and expert advice in an age in which the borders between basic and applied research are being redrawn.

Science Policies

One of ALLEA’s assets is its diverse membership, comprising as it does national academies from large G8 nations and smaller emerging economies alike. The political and social changes, the emergence of new nation states, and the reorientation of the science system in Central and Eastern Europe have placed science policy makers  in Europe in front of massive challenges. ALLEA has been exploring options and obstacles throughout these processes and continues to operate as an avocate for the better integration of all its members into the European Research and Higher Education Area.

 

Scientific Lingua Franca

ALLEA’s Member Academies have been instrumental in the more distant and the more recent past in stimulating and creating national research environments. The global spread of the scientific endeavour makes it ever more necessary that science communication occurs both globally and locally.