EURASHE contributes to EC's public consultation on the ERA Act

EURASHE, the European Association for the Applied Sciences in Higher Education, has made a contribution to the European Commission's public consultation on the European Research Area Act (ERA Act) which closed on 23 January 2026. EURASSHE's contribution was published on the same day.

The association calls the ERA Act a "flagship initiative aimed at closing the innovation gap and establishing the ‘fifth freedom’ – the free movement of researchers, scientific knowledge, and technology across the EU". EURASHE strongly supports a legal instrument to build the ERA, while calling for measures to avoid regional divergence.

According to its contribution, EURASHE strongly supports the EU’s ambition to reach a 3% GDP investment target in R&D and emphasises that this increase must be pursued in a way that reduces disparities between Member States and regions, ensuring that excellence is developed everywhere. As part of the targets, the association calls for a good balance between basic and applied research, in which Universities of Applied Sciences (UAS) act as key connectors between research, industry, and regional authorities to translate private investment into socio-economic impact. In line with the movement to reform research assessment (through CoARA), EURASHE advocates for research assessment systems that more strongly focus on socio-economic impact over the number of publications.

To improve the effectiveness of R&D investments, EURASHE supports a stronger role for the ERA Forum in aligning policies of Member States. The association believes that the ERA should be built on national and regional Smart Specialisation Strategies (S3), linking their priorities to those at European level, creating critical mass, and avoiding fragmentation. In this context, it also calls for the Research & Innovation and Cohesion Managing Authorities Network (RIMA) to play a central role in coordinating regional innovation ecosystems with centrally managed programmes.

Finally, EURASHE supports EU-level measures to provide stable and inclusive employment and improved social security for researchers.

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EURASHE contribution to the EC's public consultation on the ERA Act.