A European talent ecosystem for early career researchers

In this session, the speakers discuss the European research ecosystem and the emerging talent ecosystem aimed at enhancing the flexibility and productivity of researchers across both academia and industry. They outline initiatives from the European Commission designed to facilitate the movement of researchers between sectors, thereby fostering a non-linear career path. The emphasis is placed on the Deep Tech Seeds project, which aims to improve early-career researchers' skills in key areas like AI and quantum technologies. Furthermore, the session highlights the development of frameworks and tools to support and guide researchers through these changes, including the European Charter for Researchers, which aims to improve working conditions and career opportunities in the research field. The goal is to create better collaboration between academic and industrial stakeholders to better prepare researchers for future job markets and requirements.

[music] >> Thank you Rosalia very much. Uh welcome all to this session. Uh I I don't have the first presentation. I will just make a small introduction. This is a a session about the the the European uh research ecosystem and the talent ecosystem. Um and we are going to present, let's say the presentation split in two main sessions. The first one it's from the European Commission representatives,

which are presenting the initiatives for the talent ecosystem, how Europe wants to reform the researcher job in the future in order to increase productivity of Europe. Um there are ideas and initiatives and strategy behind in order to uh assist researchers not to remain only the academia, but to be able to to shift between the industry and the academia and so the talents the talent, let's say, not

to main to remain only to the one or the other sector, but to be flexible. And then we will present some tools that a group of sister projects is building will focus more on the deep tech seeds, which is a research project that we are coordinating. Uh which provides frameworks, provides tools in order to help uh the early career researchers to first of all to to be

more literate for deep tech technologies, which is a key aspect in order to pro- proceed with a and advance your research skills. And then how they can uh be more engaged in this new uh situation that is created for the talent ecosystem. So, becoming a very good researcher, becoming a talent, how you can be flexible in your career path and not to follow the typical linear one,

but to be flexible to to have a non-linear between the academia and the industry. So, I propose to start. Before that, I would like to ask Stefano to to disable your screen saver because it's very very fast, so I worry that potentially will create issues. And we we start. So, the first sessions are delivered by European Commission representatives. We have Stein and Dario. Stein is a project

officer of ERA ecosystem. Dario is a policy Policy? Policy officer. Policy officer. Sorry, my mistake. Policy officer. My my first word that comes to my mind is a policy briefs. Okay. As you see, yeah, you have this coupled with that. So, as you see this project and this initiative from the European Commission is not only for research for research, but it's also research for the strategic decisions

of Europe in the future. So, if we are ready, I give the floor to Dario. Thank you very much, Arilaos, and good afternoon, everyone. Um so, I think that in order for you to better understand what the concrete projects, or in this case one of them, one of these talent ecosystems projects that we have ongoing, what they are doing and in which context they are working, I

will present to you a bit of policy of what we are doing where we are at European level. So I am Dario Capezzuto. I work in the DG Research and Innovation the European Commission and I work in the unit which deals with a research careers. So what what are we trying to do at European level? We are trying to implement a fully functioning European research area. European

research area is something which now is also in the treaties and it is the ambition to have a single market for researchers, for scientific knowledge and for technology. So to have a system which is integrated. Of course with with the full respect also of national competences. So not everything can be really fully integrated but this is the ambition of the European research area and of course this

also means having really free mobility of researchers within within the the era. Which is in in short. So in order to make sure that this ambition is really translated into something factual we have a number of policies that have been developed and continue to be developed and implemented especially in the last few years and these are normally of a voluntary nature. So there are as I will

explain in a moment there are many many policy initiatives that can be implemented and we try to stimulate the implementation in order to achieve this uh European research area uh a fully functional functional one. Uh in addition to the voluntary instruments that we have had until now, we are now working on a binding instrument, so a legislative instrument which will allow, we hope, to solve some of

the outstanding obstacles. Um and this is something which is really new. We are working on it right now. We had uh several consultations uh with all relevant stakeholders, and we also had uh two opportunities for the public to explain what are the problems that they encounter, what are their suggestions. this this happened in the context of a call for evidence that we did, and which closed in

September, and then a public which closed uh 3 months ago in in January. Uh the ERA Act aims at addressing three main problems of the European research area. One is investment. We need to have more investments in research and development. We had a target which is the 3% of uh GDP, so of gross domestic product in Europe, on research and development. This has been there for far

too long. We are still at 2.2% in Europe, so one of the objectives is to strengthen investment. At the same time, we want to make sure that investment uh and cooperation between the European Union level and national uh national level uh is aligned, that there is coordination in order to have uh a stronger impact. So, that's the second objective that the ERA Act wants to achieve. And

then a third objective is to foster uh a free circulation of researchers and knowledge. This is what uh Enrico Letta called, and before him a former commissioner, Commissioner Potočnik, called the fifth freedom. In the EU, we have four freedoms, free movement of people, of capitals, goods and services. This will be the fifth freedom for research and innovation. So, this is what we are doing. This proposal for

this ERA-Act is expected by the end of the year. So, stay tuned. This is a very important moment, we believe, for the European Research Area. But, let me focus back on what we are doing, as I said, on a voluntary basis. We have a strong cooperation between all relevant stakeholders. This means member states, countries that participate to Horizon Europe, which is this very important funding program of

the EU for research and innovation, and relevant stakeholders. So, universities, associations of universities, research centers, researchers and their associations, and so on. And in this context, we have several, as we call them, structural policies or actions. So, basically, things that we need we we we decide to do at European level in order to support better implementation of the of the European Research Area. And of course, research

careers is one of these things. A very important aspect, I have to say, because there is a lot of support by all all stakeholders. I have to say, even member states, all of them are really really interested in working on this. We work in three-year cycles, which are called ERA Policy Agendas. In the previous one, which run between 2022 and 2024, we uh achieved important important objectives

because we adopted a document adopted by member states, by the council, a council recommendation setting the new European standards for Uh this is something very important because it means that now we have a document which recommends what to do in order to reinforce uh research careers in all sectors. So, academia, but also beyond academia. And also to foster mobility between sectors, which is extremely important in the

context of the talent ecosystems. So, we have achieved these new standards. We wanted to support the implementation of these new standards by everyone, by all stakeholders. And we have several tools to support this. Uh but we also wanted to put some investment to support uh incentivize even more the implementation of these new standards. And therefore, we had in the context of Horizon Europe some funding to support

some projects that would create talent ecosystems. Um I don't want to explain too much right now what talent ecosystems are supposed to be because uh it will be said later on. But just to say that they are an instrument to support the implementation of the new standards. An instrument as we are also thinking of or we are also developing several others. So, in the new ERA policy

agenda, which is this new cycle of 3 years that started last year, we will make sure that we develop instruments that that can further support in particular institutions in implementing these new standards. And so, you see here reference to guidelines, community of practice, recommendations, and so on. And we will also see how to further develop this idea of talent ecosystems to to support, and this is where

you can see what are our objectives, to support early career researchers, to so to offer better careers to early career researchers. And to do this in the context of talent ecosystems the focus is on making a show that organizations that train and employ researchers in the public sector and in the private sector cooperate. Cooperate in order to make sure that research careers can have better working conditions

and can have better employment opportunities. For the working conditions, we have an important instrument, which is the European Charter for Researchers, which includes some principles to improve So, we want the organizations, the partners that work together in the context of these projects, in the context of the talent ecosystems, implement these principles of the European Charter for Researchers, and we expect that this will also bring organizational change.

So, some improvements in the functioning of the organizations and overall better working conditions for early career researchers, but more in general for all researchers that are part of the ecosystem. And because of this close cooperation between academia and the private sector, we want to make sure that researchers are trained according to the needs of the private sector, which is in the interest of the private sector, of

course, because it means having really well prepared and strong talents, what they want, what they need. And it is also in the interest, of course, of researchers because they have this way better opportunities for their career. And overall, this contributes to more attractive research careers. As I said, we had some support from Horizon Europe already, and this is why we already have 10 projects which are the

result of a pilot call. They are ongoing, and today you will see the the what is what is happening in particular for one of these projects which is focusing on deep tech. The the total in total, we have 10 projects currently ongoing, and this will be continued. So, there will be a new call in 2027, which will be refined based on the experience of this pilot call.

There will be more money, 29 million in in this call. And of course, this will allow to go further, to build on what has already been achieved by these first 10 projects. And we will also make sure that there is more of a spillover effect going beyond providing some better careers also to other research and innovation staff. For example, research managers or research technicians. So, this is

what I wanted to say from my side regarding the policy context. And my colleague Stein Deloor from the Research Executive Agency of the Commission will further continue. So, happy anyway later on to answer any questions you may have. Thank you very Thank you, Dario. Hello, everyone. So, indeed, I'm in the Research Executive Agency. We're managing the 10 talent ecosystem grants, or portfolio, I should say. >> [snorts]

>> And to give you a a picture of what a talent ecosystem is, think of a cluster of, for instance, pharmaceutical companies or AI companies or battery companies or deep tech companies. They are of a need of specifically trained talents. They collaborate together with academia and other training providers to specifically deliver these type of Uh PhD students, postdocs, and and so Uh training them in the skills

that are future-looking, that are are forward-looking. Um so, that such a long-term collaboration is what we have in mind with the talent ecosystem. In this, you will see more about it in in the deep tech seats. So, we have 10 of these. Um I will explain you a bit what they are doing as an overview, and then we go even deeper with Stefanos and Haralambos' presentation. So,

here is just a list of the uh 10 projects and the coordinators. I'm not going to detail uh about it, but you find and you can check them on the the website. Overall, who are they? What are how they are composed in their consortia? So, a third of them are higher or secondary education establishments. There are a quarter are private for-profit entities, research organizations that are public

bodies. So, we have uh several other sectors. So, it's academia business cooperation or academia non-academic sector uh cooperation, which is of course the purpose. What are they doing or focusing on? So, all the projects are focusing on academia business cooperation. Okay, this is obvious. There's skills development following the employers' needs, career development and employability. This is what we asked for. Some of them have a geographical focus,

which is quite interesting uh regionally. Uh two of them focus especially on Balkans. Two others are regional, not looking at a country, but really specific regions in certain countries where there are skills gaps uh in in for instance health care or or in um but this is more an agnostic uh project. There are with the those with the disciplinary focus, like deep tech or digital, there are

two of them. Next-Tech Talents and Deep-Tech Seeds. In manufacturing or automotive and in in health care. the aspects that the talent ecosystem are covering linked to the ERA structural policy that was already explained by by Dario or or diverse. Uh these are all keywords that may not say something to you. Uh entrepreneurship, of course, is a something very important. Um there is one smart researchers project that

is focusing on the development of career centers that are actually providing guidance to post-doctoral researchers to better or more easily move around, circulate to non-academic sector and back uh and so on. So, these are uh just a few examples. Now, next to having 10 projects so are each working individually to uh create an ecosystem for talent circulation and talent training together with non-academic sector. The 10 projects

are also cooperating on Uh they coordinate activities. They provide feedback to the policy makers uh in the member states as well of the EU as well as to to the commission. And they join forces. So um there are several working groups groups set up for instance uh one focusing on tools, one on a matchmaking platforms, one on communication and feedback to policy. We have a cluster event

coming up with the 10 talent ecosystem projects. This will be a public event. I'll come back to it. And you're of course very much uh welcome to join. Um they are being a reflection group for the European Commission when the Commission is developing new tools. So all of this is happening uh in addition to what the projects are doing individually. Uh so the portfolio as such is

became a real instrument for the Commission to test things in the the structural policy for for research careers. So the cluster event is being organized together with the projects and uh the projects will well showcase what they are doing in detail. We will discuss first feedback to policy meaning policy recommendations from the projects to the Commission as well as uh how future grants, the ones that are

for which there is a call next year um will be uh can be improved. So you're all very welcome to participate. Uh the invitations are or the the cluster event agenda will be published uh early May. So keep an eye on it. We will communicate it to the usual through commission channels. That's it from my side. Uh, Harry Laos. If there are questions for the commission side

now if or do we proceed? I think we can proceed We proceed. Okay. Okay, we want to see anything again. There is one question. Yes, please. Uh, one question regarding CORDIS. Are these projects available in CORDIS? Yes. Yes. All the 10 projects are available in CORDIS, yes. Um, I may have a question there. Everything is open source there? >> [laughter] >> Uh, up to now the planning

is what we are developing, that's why we are here, we'll make it available open source. What about the other projects? About the other projects I cannot say. Oh, okay. Ah, even better. Call me for You can call me for check. We'll scrutinize everything. That's from my name as well. I'm Dr. Harilos Koumaras from the National Center of Scientific Research Democritus. It is uh, the biggest Greek public

research organization located in Athens, Agia Paraskevi. Um, we are the project coordinators of Deep Tech 6 projects and also to to mention that in together with us in this room we have also one partner participating in the event. We have also UPV. And Nacho and Rafa, they are representing here UPV. So, as described by Dario and Stein, um there is a change. There's a shift for the

future of the commission to create a talent ecosystem. So, to to have the researcher to identified his and her talents and to make make easy for him and her to shift between the industry and the academia, not to be something totally decoupled as it is today. We'll focus a little bit on the activity that we do in DeepTech Seeds because we focus on the early career researcher.

It's this ECR that you noticed previously in the presentations of Stein. Uh this means that we want to to assist young researchers to follow the new path and not the traditional path. And we are here because here the audience is very relevant. We have young researchers, young developers that either belong to the universities, work for universities, either work for They meet here. They discuss their career paths

and that's it. We want to create now an easy mix. So, just a few things to to to bridge also to complement what has been described. For you that potentially you are not aware, there is the European Charter for researchers. So, the the the European Commission itself has created a list of guidelines how the can implement different conditions at HR level, at managerial level, at professional level

in order to facilitate this non-linear career of a researcher of a of a young, let's say, researcher of a researcher in general. um one part of our project is to complete a survey of where we are in Europe today with the implementation of the charter. So, are the organizations, are the companies aware of these guidelines? Have they implement them? Are the early career researchers aware of their

rights, of the guidelines, of the possibilities that are provided? This is one thing that we are going to discuss today. And the second focus that we have is to uh accelerate, let's say, the um skills of the early career researchers in deep tech technologies like AI, materials, 5G, quantum, etc. Key deep tech areas that the European Commission has identified in order to make them more competitive for

this new talent ecosystem. Okay? Um so, up to now, the ecosystem provides some tools. First of all, the charter for researchers, the guideline handbook, and etc. There are also these research comp for you that potentially you are not familiar with. Are self-assessment tools available online, uh which an early career researcher can take the test online. It's free. It's easy. It's fast. And you have a feedback um

you are ranked in terms of the talent ecosystem, in terms of different skills that you should have fully developed for this new research um area. that is the the target that we are here. to identify the early career researchers and to spread the word that we building tools for them. We building material that is very relevant in order to facilitate their careers and their shift between industry

and to to foster the collaboration between academia and the industry for the Now, just a few words for the deep tech seeds. We started in October and we are still ongoing. We are funded under this pilot call together with the other nine projects, 10 in in in total. We focus in the early career researchers and in the deep tech seeds in in the and the consortium is

we are a small project, we are not so many, but we have as you can notice both academia, industry, startup accelerators, universities. So, we have all the relevant actors that build this talent ecosystem that we want to expand it at European level. Now, the the the basic activities that we are delivering is first of all a framework for the early career researchers that will assist assist them

to understand better their rights, their skills in the deep tech area, and also the charter implementation. We have some targeted training and skills development modules. We will deliver a talent ecosystem platform where early career researchers could register in order to advertise their talents, their skills, and to foster collaboration either with academia or with industry. And finally, we provide also policy feedback back to the commission influence, if

you like, the the policy strategy of the commission. first results about the analysis of the EU Charter, the Charter for researchers, where we are now. This is an activity that we started in October and we completed now end of February. So, we have performed a survey across Europe. We managed to have a very good sample for many countries, European countries. So, we we had from the Central

and Eastern Europe early career researchers, 50 companies, and 30 academia institutions. From Southern Europe, 92 ECRs, 54 companies, and 36 academic And then from the Western Europe and Northern Europe, two ECRs, 60 companies, and 12 academia academic institutions. So, we have a very good spread across Europe to understand what is the status of the Charter for researchers implementation. What is the implementation status? And where we are

with the different aspects of the Charter. The mobility paradox, first of all. What we identified, the early career are very prone to to to follow a non-linear career. They are eager to do so, to to to shift academia. But, there are structural barriers the return pathway from the industry to the academia is fully blocked. So, if you leave the academia and go to the industry due to

IP legal complexities, usually it's difficult to continue your your work back to Funding fragility. Many early career researchers are project dependent. So, they don't have a reassured a a funding source in order to build their career. The majority of them, they are on short-term contracts. this discourage the long-term And finally, researchers leave the academia to work for the industry, but not for research. Sometimes, they go to

the production. then, we have competency gaps. we notice that um there is a gap between what would be expected from the companies for the early career and what actually is the performance based on business intelligence that we perform for for researchers that work in So, it seems that >> [clears throat] >> there is a gap in in in terms of um the early career researchers are graduated

from the universities, from the academic institutions, how they have built the background working for research projects in the academia and what is expected when you work for research in a industrial institution. And finally recruitment recruitment versus retention. The the pol- the policies and the processes that are applied are assessed as very transparent, but the career roadmap for the it's not very clear. It seems that from the

recruitment to the retention and finally your business, let's say, development, there is that again we'll we'll also publish all the the results of the survey. It seems that we some researchers decide to drop research and go to the production because of this uncertainty. Now, what we are building uh identifying this gap, we will deliver at the second half of of the year uh the target is for

September, independently of the timing of the project, we want to make it available at the clustering event. We are building a a a the so-called Deep Tech Seeds framework, which is actually a suite of tools, first of all, has um some um um material for the charter alignment, so to increase awareness of the early career researchers of what is the charter, what they should expect, what they

should demand from their institutions. Then we'll have the Deep Tech Comp. This is a self-assessment tool that we are building in order to help the early become more literate, let's say, at as a baseline in specific deep tech areas that are necessary for the research field in European area. Um some transversal skills as well um covers this self-assessment test, like technology transfer, IP issues, business intelligence, and

etc. And finally, we create also some a toolkit and some um material that will help um with implementation, will provide some guidelines that will help the implementation for research organization, for the industry, and etc. So, we try to cover both aspects to help both the researcher, but also the institutions to align with the European Charter for researchers. And the focus is always the So, next step. Uh

this framework will become available at the second half of 2026. The target is to announce it in the clustering event in September, the ecosystem. It's not fully aligned with the the timing of the project, but we'll we'll manage to deliver it for the Uh we'll make it available to all the free, online for anybody to participate, and also available for the HR departments of different organizations that

want to to check what their alignment with the charter. what we want from the open community? We want to get engaged. So, um currently we have the communication channels and uh the newsletter. You can register. You can follow us. we will announce all the framework and all the available tools online. Everybody will be all open source. Everybody will be free for use. And I think it's a

very good opportunity um to to spread the the word to to your that Europe um creates a talent ecosystem. The employability of a researcher is changing in order to become more competitive and more um flexible, I would say. That's all from me. I don't know if there is any question. Yes? Perfect. Uh so, you have to join us things there. Um why don't you have something like

Mastodon and you include X because you're funded by the European Commission, right? So, a little bit of sovereignty and independence would be nice. Okay, well I will communicate this to the communication team of the project because I'm not the one, but I I understood the You know, it's very difficult many times to deal with the communication people. Because uh they have marketing ideas that does not easily

change. Oops. But, it was a good remarks actually. Uh we have another question. I apologize. I may have missed something, but um I'm a little bit mixed up because you you said to follow researchers since they left university. Yes. At what level? Master or PhD level? Because in principle, PhD is a training for a researcher, not a master. There is an official There is an official definition

Steph. There is an official definition by the commission of what is an early career So, this is not up to us to to define. Uh there is a lot of work that has been performed uh by the commission itself to define what is a researcher. How do you define the um the job of researcher and cetera? So, for the commission, there are different levels and a researcher

early career researcher can be considered anyone that has completed the postgraduate studies. So, this is the first level of a No, PhD is not mandatory. It is a different level of a researcher, but it is not mandatory according to the commission. Yes. So, if I understand correctly, master's is not enough. Yes. Yeah, yeah. For the level one. So, it should be more than a master. It should

be more than a master if I understand correctly. To be more In order to be considered as a researcher, no. But the the researcher itself is divided into different levels. If you have a PhD, you are level three. I don't remember by heart. If you are a professor, you are level five, for example. So, when starts the researcher? Once you have graduated for with a master degree.

With a master's degree? Yeah. That's not good. I can agree. In some level. Um do you have a question other question? An observation could be interesting more than a question and curiosity. Why you I was a researcher. Mhm. [laughter] I'm not anymore. I found always difficult and what we are what I am doing with open community for research is try to have a bridge between researchers and

industry because there is no Mhm. There is none. Yeah. So, you want instead to create this different figure that can jump around between research and academia, sorry, and industry or whatever other institution we have. So, you don't see a possibility to work together and having one researcher that or a community of researcher that works both for academia >> it is, it is. Or Yeah, but this is

is really difficult. Yes, we know. But this is >> So, that's a challenge I think it's a This is a challenge that the Commission won't to change and I want to emphasize what Stein and Dario presented previously. All of us we know for example the AI Act. Okay? Something that we know and we we should consider now that also an era exists. Okay? So, the Commission takes

this and the government the European government very seriously that the rights of the researchers will gradually become a legislation. So, if the the member states should align with this probably they need to change, you know, the the restrictions that does not allow this collaboration. Not easy. I I agree. >> No, no, no, that's I I work for the for example, if I decide to work because I'm

in public or research organization >> to work with industry? If I I decide to work for an industry, then I have to drop from my job. It's not allowed for me. Yes, yes, yes. it. Yeah, that's that's something I see I saw I see I'm discussing. So, that's that was a curiosity out of this, of course, because it's the first >> But I think that this is

all about that there is this initiative at European level, not only from some pilot projects. The pilot projects are here to help with this implementation. I think that the initiative is much higher at higher level, a political level, okay? Correct me if I'm if I'm wrong. >> Yes, even I mean, as a open-source community, we foster this because we need to collaborate or together. So, >> Yes.

Exactly. that's why I also suggest that. On the other side, I think it's great that we are doing this kind of jumping around because we are bringing also innovation, technology, knowledge around. So, I can bring my knowledge from the academia to you to the industry, to the industry to the academy. So, that's also some good part. And yes, you want to interview. The last thing I want

to say is that yes, you're true, this difficult working with marketing and communication, [laughter] but also it's good that now we know about that because I didn't know about this ERA act, you know? Thank you. I would like to react to your question. Are there people who are working in both industry and academia, not either and move around, either one of them or and move around. Well,

there are countries who actually fund um uh people who are exactly doing that. So, the they are in some countries they are called industrial research managers and they are partly funded by the government, partly by clusters of They are usually working in academia, but what they actually do is coordinate the flow-through of knowledge from the academia to the business cluster and make sure there are trainers from

the companies training PhD students in the academia. So, they are kind of liaison liaison persons and some governments in the EU have actually set up such a system which well creates uh very good talent ecosystems because of this. So, yes, there are this type of people and it's an example for for other countries, I would say. Yeah, I get I mean, I don't know myself some of

these example, but I know I'm in knowing the different academia and industry, I I just say it that is difficult. And with this I don't want to say that we need to reduce the number of researcher because if we have one person for both, it means that we are maybe reducing the job positions. I don't know. But this is you know, we can talk about this for

hours. But we have people that will do that for us. >> I believe that the DKI is laughing at us when we discuss this because probably will be reduced by agents, but okay. >> Yes. Yes, that's true. No, that's not true. I don't think so. >> Yeah, okay, we'll But we will see. >> For now, now. For now, now, but >> Um okay, so we we are

ready for the next session. Thank you so much for being >> [music]