European Trade Union Committee for Education

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In its newly adopted position paper on the future of the European Research Area (ERA), the European Trade Union Committee for Education (ETUCE) outlines key demands to ensure research policies prioritise public interest, academic freedom, and decent working conditions for researchers. Representing research professionals, ETUCE voices concerns about growing market-driven influences in EU research policy and the risks of sidelining researchers and their unions in governance structures.

ETUCE’s key demands include:

• Long-term public investment in research, with a call for binding targets to allocate at least 4% of GDP to publicly and privately funded research, particularly in vulnerable fields like Social Sciences, Humanities, and the Arts.
• Recognition of research as a public good, rooted in democracy, social justice, and environmental sustainability.
• Resistance to the increasing commodification of research and short-term market-driven priorities, especially within frameworks such as the Union of Skills initiative.
• Promotion of fair working conditions, permanent contracts, and inclusive career development for all researchers, especially early-career and female researchers, and stronger protections for researchers’ rights.
• A call for ethical and inclusive governance of digital and research infrastructures, with open access, high ethical standards, and clear safeguards for researchers’ autonomy.
• Stronger social dialogue: researchers’ unions must be recognised as social partners and included in the governance of ERA tools such as the ERA Policy Agenda, ResearchComp, and the Pact for Research and Innovation.
• Equity in infrastructure investment, avoiding centralisation and ensuring capacity-building in underfunded regions, with transparent governance involving trade union representatives.
• A commitment to upholding academic freedom, collective bargaining rights, and institutional autonomy, in line with international standards such as the UNESCO Recommendations and the Council of Europe’s Recommendation 1762.

ETUCE urges the European Commission and Member States to shift the focus of the ERA from competitiveness alone to a broader vision of democratic resilience, ethical research governance, the public good and social justice.

 Read the full ETUCE position paper here.

Commenting on the importance of these developments, Jorunn Dahl Norgård, Chair of ETUCE Higher Education and Research Standing Committee (HERSC), stated:

"The ERA policy agenda adopted in May includes both long and short-term structural policies and actions which potentially will have a huge impact on the researchers. This goes actions regarding both career sustainability, gender equality and research assessment. For ETUCE it is obvious that these are topics that must be subject to social dialogue and co-determination when implemented at both European and member state level. Thus, we call for stronger social dialogue."