The ACA Secretariat, in partnership with ACA member the Swiss Rectors' Conference (CRUS) would like to report the successful outcome of the annual ACA members’ seminar ‘Mobile Young Researchers: Policies and instruments of the European Research Area’. Taking place on 4 December in Zurich, this seminar examined the important role that the doctoral cycle plays in the Bologna Process, and the need to improve the conditions under which researchers can operate optimally in Europe.

With an impressive range of speakers, covering the personal experience of a young scientific career in Switzerland to European Commission policy instruments for facilitating research mobility and the ERA-MORE network, ACA examined the European Research Area as a working place for young researchers. The recommendations ‘European Charter for Researchers’ and the ‘Code of Conduct for the Recruitment of Researchers’ (C&C) formulated by the European Commission in 2005, have become basic instruments in quality assurance, and in improving working conditions for researchers. However, implementing and adopting these codes at an institutional level has been challenging and this seminar carried the message that we must educate ourselves about the important European tools and utilise them to improve the doctoral cycles at the institutional level across Europe.

ACA would like to thank CRUS for being such a generous and welcoming host.

ERA
CRUS