11 December 2015 – Wrap up Session Luxembourg Conclusions on Synergies to Fuel Researchers’ Careers Beate Scholz – Scholz CTC Synergies to fuel Researchers’ Careers Luxembourg, 10 – 11 December 2015 organised by

1.Raise awareness that the doctorate & the postdoc stage prepare for & enable to pursue multiple career paths of equal value. This is especially the responsibility of supervisors & advisors. 2.In line with the European Framework for Research careers: researchers at all stages need to take ownership for and manage their own career progression, set realistic and achievable career goals, identify and develop ways to improve employability. 3.Professional development is an essential requirement in order to succeed in academic as well as in non-academic careers. 4.It is part of science literacy to be able to communicate & interact with non-academic audiences. 2 For individual researchers

1.Provide Career Guidance to researchers at different career stages by building on individual testimonials & collective evidence of researchers’ careers & by establishing professional career advice services. 2.Allow for longer funding periods for individuals to produce better results in view of retaining the best, especially women. 3.Create inclusive higher education & research environments enabling people of diverse backgrounds & experience as well as with personal challenges to fully develop their potential & contribute to institutional development. 4.Widen the scope of activities by partnering with less privileged regions, industry as well as non-academic institutions such as charities, especially in view of joint COFUND activities. 3 For institutions (research funding & performing)

1.Create a better knowledge base about the supply & demand side with the aim to enable researchers to make informed career choices & give orientation to employers. 2.Foster impact assessment of policies & programmes & practices focussing on researchers’ careers in view of evidence-based policy-development. 3.Develop policies to incentive research funding & performing institutions to focus more on researchers than on projects because who runs the projects, if not the researchers? 4.Be aware of intersectionality – especially when considering unconscious gender/racial/socio-economic bias because inequalities reinforce each other – and develop policies accordingly. 5.Moderate the dialogue with industry & other stakeholders to foster mutual trust & awareness of respective needs in view of hiring researchers & become partners in joint programmes. 4 For the European Commission & national research policy-makers

1.COFUND has been able to guarantee research freedom through its bottom up strategy, to develop models, foster institutional corporate identities, create a COFUND Community, enlarge the visibility of other programmes. 2.Provide access to good practice examples for others to build on, especially countries, regions, sectors or research fields that are less represented in the programme. 3.Give special attention to regional research and innovation capacity building by establishing links between the Smart Specialisation Strategy and Horizon Support transdisciplinary research where social sciences and humanities and natural sciences and engineering meet to produce complex knowledge and technology in response to societal needs. 5 For COFUND

1.Careers are diverse as people’s lives: modify and contextualise merit review & enlarge the set of gold standards in research in line with Charter & Code. 2.Allow researchers to fail. 3.Create trust in researchers, this will be equally beneficial to research & humankind. 4.Care for and train individual personalities. 5.Make responsible research & innovation principles binding for all types of funding. 6.Research is Development. Higher Education is security & sustainability policy. Create joint policies. 6 Overall