Newsletter
Dear MCAA Members,
The MCAA Board welcomes this special issue of the MCAA Newsletter on “Open Science in its many forms” and would like to highlight our strong commitment to both Open Science and the Research Assessment Reform, which go hand in hand. Firstly, we would like to mention the EU-funded projects we are involved in this area: the OPUS project, which helps reform the assessment of research towards a system that incentivizes researchers to practice Open Science, and CoARA Boost, a project that strengthens the operational capacity of the Coalition for Advancing Research Assessment (CoARA).
Furthermore, we have a flagship tool to support the implementation of some of the Open Science and the Research Assessment reform principles, namely the Peer Exchange Platform for Narrative-style CVs (PEP-CV), With the support of its community manager, Pooja Khurana, the membership keeps growing, serving a large research community worldwide - just below 500 members at the moment - including MCAA members. Last October, the MCAA organized its first mentor-mentee webinar, and the PEP-CV platform was highlighted in this Nature Careers article focused on the role of our tool in supporting researchers navigating the development of their own narrative CVs.
Beyond our latest updates related to Open Science, other activities have kept the MCAA Board busy lately. Over the past few months, a lot of activity has been going on at the European Commission level with the publication of the Letta and Draghi reports. Both documents highlight the role of R&I activities in strengthening the EU’s competitiveness, but both fail to recognize the importance of the MSCA programme. Consequently, the MCAA and other organizations released a statement titled “We need much more MSCA!” which highlights the crucial role of the MSCA, the need to recognize its contributions to driving economic growth and securing Europe’s competitive edge, and for an increased budget and commitment to preserve its bottom-up approach. More recently, the Commission Expert Group on the Interim Evaluation of Horizon Europe presented its report “Align, act, accelerate. Research, technology and innovation to boost European competitiveness” highlighting the role of the MSCA programme in boosting European competitiveness. We welcomed the publication of this report and we published our Response on the Horizon Europe Interim Evaluation Report, together with Eurodoc. In preparation for the next EU framework programme for research and innovation, the MCAA is committed to continue advocating for the role of the MSCA in the EU research and innovation ecosystem.
Additionally, the ERA Policy Agenda for 2025-2027 is currently under development, and the MCAA has submitted feedback on the proposed new actions. Similarly to current actions, the MCAA expects a strong commitment of the ERA Forum to Open Science and would continue to support these types of actions, among others.
The past few months have also been busy with high-level representation activities. In October 2024, the MCAA Chair, Gian Maria Greco, and the Executive Director, Mostafa Moonir Shawrav, had a series of highly productive meetings with several stakeholders, including the MSCA Unit, Science Europe, Pracsis, and Initiative for Science in Europe. On 17 October 2024, Gian Maria also attended the invitation-only “Workshop on National activities supporting research assessment reforms” organised by the European Commission DG for Research and Innovation (DG RTD) in Brussels (Belgium). On 4-5 November 2024, MCAA Vice-Chair Corinne Portioli participated in the workshop on “Attractive Careers in Research: The expectations & roles of different stakeholder groups” organized by Science Europe in Brussels (Belgium). A few days later, Board member Ornela Bardhi shared her experience as an MSCA doctoral researcher and gave a presentation about the MCAA at the online event co-organized by Policy Answers and the MSCAdvocacy project, which focused on MSCA success stories from the Western Balkans. On 8 November, the European Commission's DG RTD invited all organizations and individuals that had submitted feedback on the ”Living guidelines on the use of Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) in research" to a workshop where updates to the guidelines were discussed. Relevant to the theme of this issue of the MCAA Newsletter were the recommendations for open and transparent use of AI in research by researchers, research institutions, and funding institutions. Gian Maria and Ornela represented the MCAA at the workshop.
We were also present at the World Science Forum, which took place in Budapest (Hungary) on 20-23 November. We co-organized two side events in collaboration with Eurodoc, ICoRSA, and YAE. The first was a panel discussion held on 19 November which focused on “Engaging Researchers and Researcher Associations in Science Advice, Diplomacy and Science for Peace”, with Mostafa as moderator and Board Member Irene Castellano as a speaker. The discussion focused on ways researchers and researcher associations can effectively engage in science diplomacy and science for peace at national and international levels. The second panel discussion took place on 20 November and was devoted to “How to make academic careers attractive and sustainable”, with our Chair, Gian Maria, as one of the speakers.
Our Board member Hakim Ferria represented our association at two separate events: Coordinators’ Info Day (MSCA DN) on 12 November in Brussels (Belgium) and at the first in-person event of the AUFRANDE (COFUND) project in Lyon (France) on 20 November. Last but not least, Gian Maria, Corinne, Hakim, and Gledson Emidio, our community officer, took part in the 8th Meeting of the Horizon Europe MSCA National Contact Points (NCP) event in Brussels (Belgium) on 27 November. This event was a great opportunity to highlight good examples and best practices of synergy & cooperation between the MCAA and the NCPs.
Finally, the Board is currently busy organizing the content of the MCAA Annual Conference 2025 that will be held in Krakow (Poland) on 21-22 March 2025, with satellite events taking place on 19-20 March.
We hope to see you all there soon!
In the meantime, enjoy your reading!
On behalf of the MCAA Board,
Irene Castellano
MCAA Board Member
contact@mariecuriealumni.eu
@Casiren
