In May 2021, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) released a policy report on reducing the precarity of academic research careers. This report addresses precarity in research careers and emphasises the importance of making it a top science policy priority in the 38 OECD countries.

It also investigates the working conditions of early-career scientists, who face a shortage of permanent jobs, hence a lack of long-term prospects and job security. The report highlights that the doctorate level attainment is rising worldwide, which increases the competition for academic research positions. The OECD Directorate for Science, Technology and Innovation (STI) notes in this report that universities mainly focus on preparing postdocs for academic careers and recommends them to train early-career researchers in gaining skills beyond fundamental research to encourage them in pursuing professional careers.

The report also explores the consequences of the COVID-19 outbreak on the precarity of academic research careers, resulting in more inequities and exposing more flaws in the academic organisational system.

The OECD’s report on reducing the precarity of academic research careers is the result of a project that started in September 2019, following an initiative launched during the 2018 OECD Global Science Forum (GSF). You can read the full report here.

In January 2021, Initiative for Science in Europe (ISE) addressed academic precarity in a report. More details are available here.

On 18 June, the Committee on Industry, Research and Energy (ITRE) hosted the “Bridging the gender gap in digital, research and industry: what is the way forward?” workshop.

Following the introductory words from MEP and Chair Cristain Buşoi and MEP Josianne Cutajar, speakers from three panels could discuss various aspects of the gender gap in the ongoing digital transition and the shortage of women in STEM in the EU.

Cheryl Miller Van Dÿck, Chairwoman at the Women Entrepreneurship Platform and Digital Leadership Institute, Belgium and Caroline Lair, Founder of The Good AI, co-founder of Women in AI France, as members of the 2^nd and 3^rd panel, emphasised the unevenly distributed uptake of new technologies between genders.

However, focus was also given to the opportunity of using the AI revolution as a tool to fight gender bias rather than letting it exacerbate the already existing ones.

The closing Q&A sessions highlighted the fact that meeting SDG5 objectives requires “gender equality [to] be the leading principle for the digital transition”.

You can watch the recording of the workshop here.

The third edition of the European Research and Innovation Days was held online on 23 and 24 June 2021. This two-day event was organised by the European Commission and aimed at enhancing cooperation and discussion in the field of R&I by connecting policymakers, researchers, entrepreneurs, and the general public in Europe.

As Commissioner Mariya Gabriel underlined, this year’s edition was marked by the launch of Horizon Europe, the 2021 – 2027 EU R&I framework programme:

“The 2021 edition of the European Research and Innovation Days could not have come at a more important time. Together, we can recover from the coronavirus pandemic and ensure a green and digital future for everyone.”

–       Mariya Gabriel,
Commissioner for Innovation, Research, Culture, Education and Youth
Source: https://bit.ly/3c9ezgM

Furthermore, the 2021 edition of the European R&I Days focused on three main topics:

• strengthening the European Research Area (ERA);
• fostering the COVID-19 recovery;
• shaping a greener and more digital future for Europe.

Click here to discover more about the R&IDaysEU 2021.

MSCA: what’s new under Horizon Europe?

On 1 July 2021, an information session presenting the key novelties of the MSCA calls under Horizon Europe was organised during the Horizon Europe Info Days. Amongst others, new policies have been implemented to reduce the administrative burden and facilitate the application process.

Precisely 13 years after its first Presidency of the Council of the European Union, Slovenia stepped into its second mandate on 1 July 2021 and started implementing critical new initiatives while pursuing inherited measures from its direct predecessors as the EU is slowly shifting from crisis-handling times to post-crisis recovery.

Nowadays, being faced with a highly diverse EU and standing by the presidential trio’s common top priorities, Slovenia strives to strengthen the European health system while guaranteeing a fair, sustainable, and digital transition. As a first milestone, the Slovenian Resilience and Recovery Plan (with a €2.5 billion budget) on NextGenerationEU’s recovery package fund utilisation was approved by the European Commission in early July.

Naredimo jo resnično! Let’s #MakeItReal for Slovenia! 🇸🇮

We have endorsed the country’s plan powered by #NextGenEU on its first day chairing the Presidency of the @EUCouncil.#NextGenerationEU @EKvSloveniji @eu2021si #EU2021SI

— European Commission 🇪🇺 (@EU_Commission) July 1, 2021

Then, from a broad perspective, Slovenia will be committed to pursue its predecessors’ ambitions by revolving the forthcoming 6-month term around the success of the new European R&I programme: Horizon Europe – whose work programmes and first calls have just been released – and by ensuring the building of strong links between the programme’s actions and the Recovery .

This commitment comes along with the more specific determination to build a renewed and more inclusive European Research Area (ERA) whose process, as suggested by Slovenia’s presidential motto “Together. Resilient. Europe.”, will strongly rely on the importance of collaborating with third countries in the scientific knowledge field. The upcoming Council’s response to Europe’s global approach to cooperation in research and innovation: strategic, open, and reciprocal is expected to outline Slovenia’s action plan suggestions on this matter.

Within the building of this new ERA but equally throughout the whole programme and its presidential term in general, Slovenia will work on fostering EU private-public partnerships to maximise excellence in research outcomes. What’s more, it will prioritise gender balance as well as the greater professional integration of young researchers.

In the same vein, Slovenia will also take further steps towards the adoption of the Pact for Research and Innovation, laying down the foundations for ERA’s implementation principles and aiming at setting common targets across Europe. The adoption completion would allow Slovenia to bolster the Lisbon Treaty’s initial ambition to “strengthen [the EU’s] scientific and technological bases by achieving a European Research Area in which researchers, scientific knowledge and technology circulate freely” from when it was officially implemented under its previous presidential term.

Echoing Prime Minister Janez Janša’s words when initiating Slovenia’s 2008 Presidency, pledging to “see the environmental-energy dimension as being one of the key issues for the future of the European Union” Slovenia will also strive to foster innovative opportunities in the clean energy field by completing negotiations on the Trans-European Networks for Energy (TEN-E) as well as on the Renewable Energy Sources Directive (RES) and the Energy Efficiency Directive (EE) as announced by State Secretary of the Environment Metka Gorišek.

Furthermore, Slovenia’s valuable resilience illustrated through the development of its eHealth system in response to the COVID-19 crisis and in the cancer detection field as well as its strong AI innovator potential – which led UNESCO to select it as a homeland for its International Research Centre on Artificial Intelligence (IRCAI) – will allow it to bring consistent input to the drafting of general approaches on key EU digital initiatives such as the recently published AI Act.

Slovenia’s Presidency will end on 31 December 2021, thus concluding the Presidential Trio of the Council of the EU made up of Germany, Portugal and Slovenia.

Fruitful meeting w/ 🇸🇮 Minister of #Education #Science & #Sport @SimonaKustec!

I look forward to working w/ the 🇸🇮 Presidency and hope to see many important proposals in the area of #education 🏫 #youth #sport 👟 & #research 🔬 adopted. pic.twitter.com/4tQY9d7jwP

— Mariya Gabriel (@GabrielMariya) July 14, 2021

Ljubljana pact on gender parity in research

The Slovenian Presidency is currently drafting the Ljubljana pact on gender parity in research, a document aiming to enhance actions towards gender equality in research and to boost joint efforts between EU member states in this regard.

In its work programme, Slovenia states that “in the European Research Area, special attention will be devoted to efforts to ensure gender equality” (page 30). The Slovenian Presidency will also support the EU Gender Equality Strategy and will work on reaching gender equality in the labour market by promoting women’s participation and reducing the gender pay gap.

You can have a look at the official website of the Slovenian Presidency here.

On 23 June, the European Chemical Society (EuChemS) held another successful online event in celebration of the 2019 EuChemS Lecture Awardee. More than 150 attendees from 23 different countries attended this webinar to learn more about the research conducted by David Portehault, who gave a talk on “From water to molten salts: geoinspired syntheses and reactivity of nanomaterials.”  

In his talk, David Portehault explained original nanomaterials synthetisation from the perspective of geology: he presented geo-inspired synthesis conditions, from low temperature chimie douce in water, to liquid-phase synthesis in inorganic molten salts and to high pressures. In addition, two students under the supervision of David Portehault, Yang Song and Fernando Igoa, complemented his presentation, illustrating the cross-disciplinary approach of the group (i.e. nano chemistry, solid-state chemistry, materials science, and high-pressure physics). Their presentations were titled “Design of metal silicide nanoparticles in molten salts for electrocatalytic water oxidation” and “The soft chemistry of extended covalent systems towards boron-based nanomaterials” respectively.  

During the webinar, Floris Rutjes, EuChemS President, handed out the 2019 EuChemS Lecture Awardee to David Portehault virtually, after giving the laudation. David Portehault was selected as the 2019 Prize winner by the EuChemS Executive Board, following the advice of the International Award Committee for the EuChemS Lecture Award (IACL), in recognition of his major achievements in chemistry as a junior scientist.  

“This event was a nice opportunity for some PhD students to speak in front of a wide audience. I think it was important in this context of social distancing.” 

-David Portehault, EuChemS 2019 Lecture Awardee
Closing remarks of the 2019 EuChemS Lecture Awardee webinar 

You are invited to watch the recording of this webinar on the EuChemS YouTube channel.