Universitat de Barcelona

During the signature of the Memorandum of Understanding. (Photo: Veerle Van Kerckhove)

On 17th July the League of European Research Universities (LERU), in which the UB is a member, and the European Commission signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on the further realisation of the European Research Area (ERA). According to this MoU, LERU will encourage its members to carry out, by the end of 2013, a number of actions, dealing with open recruitment, research careers, gender, mobility, doctoral training open access, knowledge transfer, e-science and scientific cooperation.

Exactly 10 years ago, in August 2002, LERU published its first ever document, which was a note on the creation of the ERA and the role of research-intensive universities. Five years later, LERU produced an extensive position paper on the future of the ERA, and in 2009 LERU did another note for the incoming Commissioner, Mrs Geoghegan Quinn, on the further development of the ERA. In each of those documents, LERU expressed its strong support of the concept of a powerful ERA and has acted accordingly.