ALLEA supports joint statement of UK and Irish Academies after triggering Art. 50

ALLEA supports upholding the principles outlined in a joint statement on “Higher Education, Research and Innovation: After Triggering Article 50”, issued on 29 March 2017, by seven Academies from the British Isles, five of which are ALLEA Member Academies. ALLEA joins the academies in continuing to flag the importance of honouring existing research collaboration agreements for the duration of their course and to ensure the best possible conditions are in place for future collaboration between the EU and the UK.

Joint statement on higher education, research and innovation by UK and Irish Academies, following the formal invocation of Article 50 by the UK Government

Higher Education, Research and Innovation:

After Triggering Article 50

Research and innovation are vital for the UK’s growth, prosperity and influence, given the centrality of the service/knowledge economy and its reliance on higher education and research for current and future competitiveness.

Enhancing the UK’s world-leading research, innovation, and higher education systems should remain a key priority now that Article 50 has been triggered. Last year, following the outcome of the referendum, we laid out four areas of focus for the Government in the negotiations: people, collaboration, resources, and regulation. Clear action across these four areas is needed for the Government to deliver its commitment that the UK continue to be one of the best places in the world for research and innovation.

The Government should commit now to:

Overall

• creating early in the negotiations a clearly defined arrangement for higher education, research and innovation, in terms of both time and content.
• maintaining a continued close partnership with the EU for higher education, research and innovation. UK research and innovation will continue to benefit substantially from collaboration with colleagues in EU Member States. Non-European research collaborations are also vital, but cannot substitute for European collaboration.
• recognising that Northern Ireland will acquire a unique position as the only region within the UK which will share a land border with an EU Member State and that, where possible, the unimpeded movement of academic staff and students across that border to work and study should be allowed to continue.
• creating measures to ensure that the UK remains open to the world and welcoming to talented people from Europe and globally.

People

• safeguarding the ability of UK institutions to retain and readily employ EU innovation, research and higher education staff after the UK leaves the EU.
• providing a right to remain indefinitely to all EU staff and their dependants, employed in the UK at the time of the departure from the EU, in order to remain a competitive environment to recruit talented researchers.
• maintaining the opportunities UK nationals presently have to work in the EU because the UK benefits from them being able to work overseas to develop expertise and networks, and bring these back to the UK.
• providing measures to ensure that the UK remains open to the world and welcoming to talented students from Europe and globally, for instance extending the same assurances for EU students arriving in the UK for the academic years 2018-19 and 2019-20 as have been provided for those arriving in the current and next academic year in terms of eligibility for student finance throughout the duration of their courses, including taking up post-degree employment in the UK.

Collaboration

• continuing to participate fully in Erasmus+ and Horizon 2020, including the European Research Council and the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions, until their completion.
• gaining continued close association with European programmes in the knowledge that three of the UK’s top five research collaborators are EU Member States.
Resources
• demonstrating its ambition by setting a target of 3% of GDP for combined public and private R&D spending and take steps to deliver this by at least matching public investment to the OECD average of 0.67% of GDP invested into R&D.
• providing an environment and incentives that encourages greater private sector investment in the UK’s research and innovation base.

Regulation

• preserving the mutual recognition of professional qualifications between the UK and EU Member States.
• preserving and building on regulatory and standards equivalence with the EU where appropriate.

Click here to download PDF.

The statement follows up on a first joint initiative of the seven academies in response to the Brexit vote in July 2016. The text can be found here.

ALLEA publishes revised edition of The European Code of Conduct for Research Integrity

ALLEA, the European Federation of Academies of Sciences and Humanities, published today the revised edition of The European Code of Conduct for Research Integrity, a document that serves the European research community as a framework for self-regulation across all scientific and scholarly disciplines and for all research settings. Particularly the revised Code addresses recent and emerging challenges emanating from technological developments, open science, citizen science and social media, among other areas. The publication was presented to the European Commissioner for Research, Science and Innovation, Carlos Moedas, in Brussels, who recognised the relevance of the ALLEA Code as a model for organisations and researchers across Europe.

ALLEA President presents European Code of Conduct for Research Integrity to European Commissioner for Science, Research and Innovation, Carlos Moedas Credit: European Commission

The Code sets out principles of research integrity, criteria for good research practice, and describes how to prevent violations of research integrity. The present revision is motivated by current developments in the European research funding and regulatory landscape, changing institutional responsibilities, and evolving review procedures. In addition, the Code is applicable to expanding open access publishing, and the use of digital repositories, and takes into account new ways of communicating science and involving citizens in research. The Code seeks to empower individual researchers and a variety of research bodies, funding agencies and publishers by creating a common understanding of how research should be conducted.

Presentation of the ALLEA Code in Brussels

In a meeting in Brussels, the publication was presented by the ALLEA President, Professor Günter Stock, the lead author of the drafting group, Dr Maura Hiney, and the chair of the ALLEA Permanent Working Group on Science and Ethics, Professor Göran Hermerén, to European Commissioner Carlos Moedas, who welcomed the publication. “The Commission’s recent White Paper on the Future of Europe shows that we need knowledge and innovation to respond to global challenges and to address the needs of people in the European Union. The public needs full trust in science, and this can only be achieved if the highest level of research ethics and integrity are guaranteed. This goes hand in hand with our Open Science agenda to ensure open access to scientific publications and data. I warmly thank ALLEA and its member academies for producing this new Code of Conduct for Research Integrity. I am sure it will serve as a model for organisations and researchers across Europe”, said Commissioner Moedas.

“I warmly thank ALLEA and its member academies for producing this new Code of Conduct for Research Integrity. I am sure it will serve as a model for organisations and researchers across Europe”

European Commissioner for Research, Science and Innovation, Carlos Moedas

 

President Günter Stock underlined the efforts of ALLEA in supporting the scientific community in the field of research integrity and particularly in keeping the pace with the changing conditions of the research environment. “Research integrity is a prerequisite for achieving excellence and building trust in research. The Code offers a common understanding on the ethical and practical challenges inherent to research in Europe and globally. Through the revision process, the Code helps researchers to navigate the changing and increasingly complex research environment they are facing today and in days to come. At the same time it reveals to the general public how researchers reflect on their work and what principles they follow”, said President Stock.

“Through the revision process, the Code helps researchers to navigate the changing and increasingly complex research environment they are facing today and in days to come. At the same time it reveals to the general public how researchers reflect on their work and what principles they follow”

ALLEA President, Günter Stock

The publication of the Code is the result of a ten-month revision process led by ALLEA’s Permanent Working Group on Science and Ethics, which brings together leading European experts in the fields of research integrity and research ethics. The revision process included an extensive stakeholder consultation at the European level, involving major actors in European research, both public and private, including civil society organisations, private institutions, universities, publishers and the European Commission. The Working Group will review the document every three to five years and revise it as necessary to account for future emerging issues.

The European Code of Conduct for Research Integrity, which was originally published in 2011 jointly with the European Science Foundation (ESF), informs national research policies across Europe and is widely recognised as a general framework for research integrity on the continent. At the European level, the European Commission uses the Code as a reference document in the Horizon 2020 Model Grant Agreement. The Council of the European Union has also reaffirmed the importance of the ALLEA Code in its Council conclusions of 1 December 2015, which presented research integrity as an essential condition for achieving scientific excellence and socio-economic impact.

Read the publication here

Press Kit

ALLEA Board meets at the Leopoldina and the Union of the German Academies

The ALLEA Board held its first meeting of 2017 in Berlin on 16-17 March on the kind invitation of the Leopoldina and the Union of the German Academies of Sciences and Humanities. Board members discussed the year ahead for ALLEA, including the release and further implementation of The European Code of Conduct for Research Integrity, recent progress of the SAPEA project and the preparations for the ALLEA General Assembly in Budapest at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences on 4-6 September 2017.

The discussions of the meeting focused on the upcoming release of the Code of Conduct and the successful revision process led by the ALLEA Permanent Working Group on Science and Ethics. ALLEA Board Member, Krista Varantola, who is part of the Drafting Group responsible for the revision process, reported the final steps of the editing procedure of the Code, which will be available online on ALLEA’s website and ready for print in the coming months. The document will serve as a reference document for the Horizon 2020 Model Grant Agreement and will inform national and regional policy-makers, as well as science-related organisations on research integrity across Europe. The ALLEA Board members agreed on the importance to disseminate the document widely within the scientific community and across all sectors, both at the European and national levels, and highlighted the indispensable role of Member Academies in this regard.

The progress of ALLEA’s science for policy activities within the SAPEA project were further assessed, in particular the rapid setup of the working structures and the scientific activities supporting the High Level Group within the Scientific Advice Mechanism (SAM). Member Academies actively support these efforts through the nomination of experts for the provision of science advice in a number of topics that SAM addresses such as Cybersecurity, New techniques in agricultural biotechnology, and Food from the Ocean.

Furthermore, the preparation and programme of the 2017 General Assembly and the follow-up international conference on “Sustainability and Resilience” were presented and discussed. Participants welcomed the high quality of the scientific endeavour, which will bring together renowned scientists and scholars, and high level officials from all relevant sectors in the European research area.

In the course of the meeting, ALLEA Board member Carlo d’Adda informed on the outcomes and future priorities of the ALLEA Permanent Working Group Intellectual Property Rights. The Group works towards producing statements on the patentability of Human Embryonic Stem Cells (HESC), the patenting of products of essentially biological processes, the inventorship of multinational inventions, and the European Commission’s proposal for a directive on copyright in the Digital Single Market. Furthermore, the experts will continue monitoring the latest developments on “Open Access”, taking into account the complex negotiations between the publisher Elsevier and several German scientific institutions, as well as the case law of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) concerning the linking and making available of contents on the Internet.

About Leopoldina and the Union of German Academies

Founded in 1652, the Leopoldina is one of the oldest academies of science in the world. It is dedicated to the advancement of science for the benefit of humankind and to the goal of shaping a better future. With some 1,500 members, the Leopoldina brings together outstanding scientists from Germany, Austria, Switzerland and many other countries.

The Union of the German Academies of Sciences and Humanities is the umbrella organisation of eight German academies of sciences and humanities. The member academies comprise a total of over 1,900 scholars of diverse subjects, all of whom are outstanding representatives of their research fields, both nationally and internationally. Together they are committed to promoting scientific exchange, excellence in research, and supporting young early-stage researchers in the sciences and humanities.

ALLEA participates in international conference on European non-university research

The international conference “Prague Forum” brought together on 8 March 2017 high level research, university and academy representatives to reflect and discuss how the future of non-university research should be addressed beyond 2020. President Günter Stock represented ALLEA in the event, which was organised by the Czech Academy of Sciences (CAS) on the occasion of the ending of the Presidency of Professor Jiří Drahoš.

The future of non-university research institutions and research infrastructures, their further development and society-wide roles of these organisations were the main themes of the forum, which took place in Prague under the aegis of the Czech Vice Prime Minister for Science, Research and Innovation Pavel Bělobrádek. Experts and officials exchanged opinions and experiences on the challenges and opportunities for scientific excellence and the widening concept, the question of open science as a new paradigm of the European Research Area, and the relevance of a dialogue between science, policy and the wider public.

ALLEA President, Günter Stock, in a panel in the Prague Forum. Credit: Czech Academy of Sciences (CAS)

The ALLEA President participated in a panel under the title “Scientific Excellence and the Widening Concept”. In his presentation, Prof. Stock reflected on how scientific excellence and the widening concept can be an “opportunity for inclusion” in various perspectives, from including more disciplines in the search for solutions to pressing problems, to connecting science with policy-making and the general public. Particularly he underlined the necessity to be more inclusive with lower performance research institutions in Europe by enabling them to compete at the highest level.  “I translate the widening concept into something like structural support programmes with competitive elements to bring up more academic institutions to a level where they can truly compete in this Europe-wide race for example for European Research Council grants”,  said Prof. Stock.

 “I translate the widening concept into structural support programmes with competitive elements to bring up more academic institutions to a level where they can truly compete in this Europe-wide race for example for European Research Council grants”

ALLEA President, Günter Stock

The President of the CAS, Professor Jiří Drahoš, acquainted the participants of the conference with the structure and conception of the academy, and foresaw that “the role and importance of peak non-university institutions, including their cooperation with universities, will grow also after 2020”. The event was attended by top level representatives of European science, including Martin Stratmann, President of the the Max Planck Society, Maive Rute, Deputy Director General of the Joint Research Centres, Michael Matlosz, President and Chief Executive Officer of the French National Research Agency for the Support of Research, among others.

The conference also touched upon a wide range of topics, concerning the functioning of scientific institutions of non-university research, as well as the prospects of scientific collaboration and non-university research development in Central and Eastern Europe.

About the Czech Academy

The Czech Academy of Sciences (CAS) is the Czech successor of the former Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences. It is set up as a complex of 54 public research institutions. Its primary mission is to conduct basic research in a broad spectrum of the natural, technical and social sciences and the humanities. This research, whether highly specialised or interdisciplinary in nature, aims at advancing developments in scientific knowledge at the international level, while also taking into account the specific needs of both Czech society and national culture. Scientists of the Academy institutes participate in education, particularly through doctoral study programmes for young researchers and by teaching at universities as well. The Academy fosters collaboration with applied research and industry. The integration of Czech science into the international context is being promoted by means of numerous joint international research projects and through the exchange of scientists with counterpart institutions abroad.