On January 1, Portugal took over the rotating six-month presidency of the European Union, and announced
: to promote Europe’s recovery from the pandemic, its programmes for social solidarity, and its “strategic autonomy.”
Important for success is a focus on research careers, and on strengthening the European Research Area – a set of policies promoting cooperation and mobility of ideas and researchers across the EU. So argues Manuel Heitor, Portuguese minister for science, technology and higher education, in this essay for Science|Business.
Progress achieved in the development of the European Research Area over the past 20 years has attracted broad support, and now it is time to challenge European citizens and institutions to further enhance and improve it. As part of that, as we launch the next EU R&D programme Horizon Europe, we must reaffirm the target that the EU spend 3% of gross domestic product on R&D by 2030 [up from 2.18% in 2018].