On 15 June, the European Commission’s Directorate General for Migration and Home Affairs (DG HOME), the Directorate-General for Research and Innovation (DG RTD) and the Directorate-General for Education, Youth, Sport and Culture (DG EAC) co-chaired the second meeting of the Talent for Innovation Attraction Platform.  

This expert platform has been created following the adoption of the EU Visa Strategy and a Recommendation attracting talent for innovation, to make the EU more attractive to highly skilled professionals, students, researchers and entrepreneurs earlier this year (see ACA Newsletter – Education Europe, January 2026). 

Following the launch of the platform at the first meeting in March, the second meeting focused on the attraction and retention of international students and researchers. It  brought together experts working on migration, education and research, representatives from universities, national research centres, and other stakeholders, including the Academic Cooperation Association (ACA) and the European University Association (EUA).  

Aimed at monitoring the implementation of the Commission Recommendation on attracting talent for innovation, the meeting featured member states’ approaches to facilitating coordination among national actors involved in the talent attraction and retention process of international students and researchers.  

Participants discussed how to strengthen Europe’s attractiveness for international students and researchers, highlighting benefits such as the Schengen area, intra-EU mobility, longer-term career opportunities, integration support, family support for researchers, post-study and post-research pathways, and research infrastructure. Notable challenges included lack of affordable housing and the transferability of social security benefits. The meeting also included an exchange on recent EU legal developments, including the transposition of the revised Single Permit Directive and the Implementation Report of the Seasonal Workers Directive. The next meeting of the Talent for Innovation Attraction Platform will focus on talent attraction for startups/scaleups founders and innovative entrepreneurs.  

ACA members play a key role in talent attraction at national and EU level, with the association being actively involved in several EU support activities, including Study in Europe and the Erasmus Mundus Support Initiative.