ERA-NET

Dossier description

ERA-NET (European Research Area Network) is an important policy instrument of the European Commission for the coordination of National Research Programmes. Within an ERA-NET cooperation and coordination takes place between national research funding agencies from different member states. The goal of ERA-NET is to counteract fragmentation of research and to stimulate quality. The instrument attempts to address the issues that many subsidy providers and research councils deal with: for certain thematic research areas there are not enough participants, not enough budget and/or insufficient critical mass. An ERA-NET makes it possible to address all these issues. In addition, it provides the possibility to exchange experiences and can lead to joint calls for proposals or at least to better coordinated calls.

ERA-NET is an instrument of the European Commission to make a positive contribution to the ERA. An ERA-NET is in the first instance a network in which research funding agencies investigate whom they could collaborate with and which research areas are eligible. On the one hand it remains a network. On the other hand a number of parties develop a joint research programme with a common budget. In that case, researchers from Europe can register through a call for proposals with one of the participating parties.

There are also ERA-NETs where research funding agencies jointly seek alignment with countries outside Europe such as the ERA-NET CO-REACH with China. Furthermore the ERA-NETs will strengthen the complementarity and synergy between the Seventh Framework Programme (FP7) and the activities carried out under the intergovernmental structures such as EUREKA and COST.

In the Netherlands NWO and AgentschapNL are very actively involved in ERA-NETs in a wide range of areas such as chemistry and humanitarian studies.

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Website: DG Research and Innovation (RTD) ERA-NETs

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ERA-NET

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