Following the intensive work carried out by the Working Party on Research within the Permanent Representatives Committee, the
Council of the European Union adopted, at its meeting on 25-26 September, the
conclusions on the May Commission communication Better careers and more mobility: A European partnership for researchers (for background details please consult the May edition of
ACA Newsletter – Education Europe).
Welcoming the proposal and the priority lines advanced by the European Commission, the Council seems to
assign more concrete tasks to both parties involved in this partnership: the European Commission and the member states. While member states are granted the liberty to implement at the national level whatever initiatives (within the priority lines of the document) they consider necessary for reaching the common objective of better careers and more mobility for researchers, they are called
to “define and use appropriate indicators for monitoring progress, at both national and Community level” together with the Commission;
to regularly report on the undertaken or envisaged actions, the first report being due by the end of 2009; and
to incorporate these efforts in annual reports within the Lisbon Strategy framework.
In its turn, the Commission is assigned to annually report on the results achieved and to make a global assessment of the partnership in 2010.
It remains to be seen if this European push for “common and complementary objectives in the field of careers and mobility of researchers” will be strong enough to determine similar actions and results across member states.
Council of the European Union 
