European Science, Research and Innovation – Reports (May / June 2020)

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The period of the coronavirus lockdown was not particularly easy for scientists and the entire academic community, especially in terms of the implementation of research grants or research mobility. However, it is worth noting that at that time a number of interesting reports devoted to the European science, research and innovation were published like: 1) SRIP 2020 report, 2) Open Science Policy Platform report, 3) ERA-LEARN reports on partnerships, 4) European Innovation Scoreboard 2020, 5) Nature Index ranking. In the light of this, we are pleased to provide you with a short description and a link to each report below.

Science, Research and Innovation Performance of the EU 2020 report

The report ‘Science, research and innovation performance of the EU 2020‘ (SRIP 2020), published by the Directorate-General for Research and Innovation of the European Commission, examines the EU research and innovation activities in a global context. #SRIP2020 demonstrates that while the EU is a leader in publications or patents on climate change and the bioeconomy, it is still losing out to the United States or China when it comes to investments in the R&D sector. Hence, European Union policy should emphasize the promotion of open science, cooperation between various partners, and the development of digital skills of scientists and advanced technologies. The report also highlights the need for research and innovation to foster sustainable growth and enhance inclusiveness of businesses, regions and countries.

The results of the EC’s Science, Research and Innovation report show the dynamics of the R&I sector and analyze Europe’s achievements in science and innovation and their drivers (e.g. gender equality, regional potential). It is also worth paying attention to the 11 recommendations that have been outlined for areas such as a safe and fair space for humanity, global leadership, and economic and social impact.

Recommendations coming from the report will be discussed during the online meeting for Polish regional representations – organized by the Polish Science Contact Agency in Brussels – on 6th July 2020. Our guest will be Ms. Katarzyna Szkuta, policy officer in the Centre for Policy and Programming DG RTD, A.1 – Strategy and Foresight in the R&D area, which is a co-author of the report.

Open Science Policy Platform report

On 28th May the Open Science Policy Platform (OSPP) published the report ‘Progress on Open Science: Towards a Shared Research Knowledge System‘ which summarizes a four-year mandate of the OSPP. OSPP is a platform consisted of representatives of various organizations related to science and research, the aim of which is to examine the practical commitments to implement open science. Building on a set of recommendations from the first mandate, the OSPP in its final report focused its attention on implementing good practices and policies at stakeholder level in 2016-2020.

The report illustrates some progress and successes in #OpenScience, but overall notes a slower than expected shift towards Open Science. It also underlines the joint responsibility of stakeholders to overcome obstacles that are still visible in areas such as the structure of an academic career or national research systems. The strength of the publication is that it provides a reader with a number of recommendations for universities, research institutions, science funding organizations, researchers, publishers and libraries, and presents a vision of going beyond open science to create a common research knowledge system by 2030.

European Innovation Scoreboard 2020

European Innovation Scoreboard (EIS) is a tool that allows comparing EU countries, other European countries and countries neighboring the EU in terms of research and innovation, assessing the strengths and weaknesses of national innovation systems. The interactive platform enables custom comparisons of results, comparison of country profiles as well as testing of correlations between results.

As revealed in the #EIS2020, the European Union for the second year in a row beats the United States and is becoming a better place to innovate. The level of innovation in the EU has increased by an average of 8.9% since 2012, with the Nordic countries still being the biggest innovators in Europe. Interestingly, in the countries of the EU-13 region, Lithuania and Latvia are the leaders.

Poland was classified in the group of moderate innovators – the level of innovation in our country increased slightly compared to 2012, which placed Poland as the fourth country at the bottom of the ranking. The relatively low position of our country is mainly due to the low attractiveness of the research support system, low innovation in the SME sector and the low internationalization of the higher education sector. On the positive side, there are aspects that create an environment conducive to innovation and employment opportunities.

ERA-LEARN reports

ERA-LEARN reports are an analysis of countries’ participation in European research and innovation partnerships. These reports present arguments explaining the level of transnational cooperation of a country in the context of the overall situation in the national research and innovation system and a comparison of a given country with a number of other countries, as well as the average for the entire EU. These reports appear to be particularly useful for organizations in a given country as they may only provide a fragmented picture of the situation or may omit some aspects important in the pan-European context of research and innovation. They can also be interesting for organizations that want to learn about the reasons behind the position or role of a given country, and thus learn from experiences in other countries.

Nature Index Ranking

The Nature Index is an international ranking of scientific institutions, created on the basis of the criterion of the number of papers published in selected leading scientific journals and the participation of authors from a given institution among the co-authors of these papers (the last list covered publications from April 1, 2019 to March 31, 2020).

In the ranking of countries, the US, China and Germany occupy three first places. Poland is placed on 24th position. Regarding the ranking of institutions, the leaders are the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Harvard and the Max Planck Society. Among Polish institutions in this year’s Nature Index, the best result was achieved by the Polish Academy of Sciences, which was ranked 236th. Behind the Polish Academy of Sciences are the University of Warsaw (382nd place) and the Jagiellonian University (467th place).


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Published: 2020-06-30

Author: J. Kramarczyk


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