In the past few months, the European Commission has continued to implement the European Research Area Policy Agenda 2022-2024 and, more specifically, two actions that are particularly important for our community.
ERA Action 7 “Upgrade EU guidance for a better knowledge valorization” is aimed at achieving a common line on measures and policy instruments for improving knowledge sharing and valorisation across Europe. The knowledge and technology transfer community is by now familiar with the “Guiding principles for Knowledge Valorisation” and with the two codes of practice implementing them (Code of Practice on the management of intellectual assets and Code of Practice on standardization). Earlier this year, Communities of Practice were created to work on two new codes related to “Industry-academia Collaboration’ and on ‘Citizen Engagement’ which are planned to be adopted at the beginning of 2024. Thanks to the valuable input from the members of its Europe Committee, ASTP has had an active role in the consultation on the draft “Code of practice on industry-academia co-creation for knowledge valorization” .
We are also following the European Commission’s initiatives related to ERA Action 17 “Enhance the strategic capacity of Europe’s public research performing organizations”. This Action aims at improving training and skills development of Research Management staff, which is defined in a very broad and multi-dimensional sense to include not only research policy advisers, research managers, financial support staff, data stewards, data analysts and specialised research infrastructure operators, but also knowledge transfer officers or knowledge brokers, business developers, innovation managers. In this respect we believe that ASTP will be able to provide a relevant contribution to the discussion that is expected to lead to a commonly agreed definition of Research Management next year.
The work of the VP Europe and Europe Committee over the past couple of years to strengthen ASTP’s position in Europe and advocate for our profession in the international arena is starting to reap benefits: ASTP was awarded a booth at the event hosted by the European Commission on 26th October “Making research results work for society” to present its initiatives and support to the knowledge and technology transfer community. Several ASTP members, including the CEO Laura MacDonald, joined panel discussions on knowledge valorisation, intellectual assets management, standardisation for knowledge uptake, collaboration and networking as well as circular economy solutions through open innovation.
Finally, on 20th November ASTP hosted, for the sixth time, a very successful ASTP-EU Forum, which has become a regular appointment for our community, as an opportunity to get to know the latest developments in policy areas affecting knowledge transfer and innovation.
More to come in the next year, so… stay tuned for the next updates!
