Debate: European support to the Ukrainian research community
Date: THURSDAY, 20 OCTOBER 2022
Speaker: Maria da Graça Carvalho
Country: Spain
Language: EN

We address the importance of science. We address the importance of science diplomacy, a tool that brings positive changes in international relations, reinforcing ties and easing political tensions. We talk about the need to bring stability to the researchers community in Europe and elsewhere. We also underline the importance of values such as research and academic freedom, such as ethics in new in science and new technologies. Researchers around the world should be free to think and express ideas. They should be free to focus on their activities for the good of humanity and to expand the frontiers of scientific knowledge. These are principles that in the European Union, we apply in all our policies. Europe must be a safe place to do research, a safe place for science. It must be an example for the rest of the world. The Union has the tradition of using science diplomacy tools in other parts of the world. I can mention, for example, the Balkans integration, for which scientific cooperation played a crucial role. The need to support researchers at risk is not a novelty. Recently, we have witnessed this in Afghanistan, where hundreds of researchers were put at risk by the Taliban regime. We see this, unfortunately, around the world where there are authoritarian regimes. The Union’s response to the needs of Ukrainian research has been, so far, swift. The Parliament was the first, demanding a mobilisation of instruments to help them to continue their research activities. The European higher education and research institutions have shown their solidarity by organising, on a voluntary basis, support for researchers, even without funding from governments or other institutions. Commissioner Mariya Gabriel was able to mobilise quickly the funds useful to support researchers. The establishment of ERA4Ukraine, a one-stop-shop to give researchers of Ukraine a concrete point of reference was one of the first responses. Initiatives like Horizon for Ukraine, ERC for Ukraine and Marie Curie actions for Ukraine followed shortly and help the creation of fellowship schemes and targeted financial support. This has been an exceptional response to a war on European soil. In Europe, we live in freedom. Values, as researchers have said, such as academic freedom are essential. However, this also increases our responsibility to help researchers at risk, especially in the neighbourhood countries that contribute also for our development research. Most of these countries were also participants in Horizon 2020 and now are in Horizon Europe. Europe should be a safe haven for all the researchers that want to continue their research. This is why we must continue to support our Ukrainian friends. Today, we are asking the European Commission how it plans to maintain and reinforce this support, which initiatives it is planning to mobilise which specific support schemes are ready and which national schemes can be pulled together to become best practices. To do all this, the European Commission should be able to use the right instruments. So far, to support Ukrainian research, the European Commission had to rely on emergency provisions in the financial regulation. We need to make better use of the possibilities provided by the association agreement between Ukraine and the EU in science.  Furthermore, we need a new and innovative approach to help the researchers in Ukraine, but also to ensure the survival and future reform of the research infrastructure in this country, so that when there is peace researchers have a place to continue their scientific work. For example, the Commission should set up an ad hoc European fellowship scheme for researchers at risk and to be prepared for the future in other situations. Parliament supports this and already has a pilot project budgeted.