If you have answered ‘yes’ to any of the questions above, you will be interested in this science and policy matchmaking event organised by the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Education, Culture, Youth and Sport (DG EAC) and the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre (JRC), which will be held online next 31st May from 09:30-13:00.

Background

The European Commission is currently evaluating their policy frameworks, instruments and mechanisms available to promote science for policy and evidence-informed policymaking processes across all Commission services and Member States’ governance levels, as part of the writing of a SWD on the topic (see participatory workshop).  

Among these, the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) offer researchers the opportunity to join public administrations, establish links with policymakers and engage in policymaking processes through their research work.

Although the range and formats of such opportunities spans across almost all programme actions (Doctoral Networks, Postdoctoral Fellowships, Staff Exchanges, etc.), this first event will focus on the placement opportunity under MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships (PF).

Placements are a new feature in PF and their goal is to create stronger inter-sectoral links through a 6-month placement in a non-academic organisation at the end of the fellowship. Next MSCA PF call is opening in May 2022 (closing mid-September 2022).  

As PF applicants must state their host organisation for any placement experience at the time of the application, this event seeks to foster networking and help both parties—researchers and policy institutions—find their right matches based on their scientific discipline and/or policy field.

Therefore, the main aim of this matchmaking event is to link policymakers interested to host researchers with researchers preparing their PF application and looking for suitable hosts for the 6-month non-academic placement at the end of the fellowship.

Call for researchers

This is an event dedicated to researchers with an interest in applying for MSCA postdoctoral fellowships. In addition, they should have one or more of the following interests:

• Researchers with an interest in learning about policymaking,
• Researchers interested in providing science advice to governments and/or parliaments, and/or
• Researchers with an interest in exploring career options in policymaking.

Call for policy organisations

We kindly invite representatives from the following organisations and with the interest of potentially hosting researchers for a short time to register to the event:

• Science, technology and innovation policy organisations such as research and education ministries, regional governments, public foundations, etc.
• Science and policy boundary organisations providing science advice to governments and/or parliaments such as public agencies, science advisory councils, strategic and foresight government offices, science and technology parliamentary offices, research parliamentary libraries, etc.
• Science diplomacy organisations such as Ministries of Foreign Affairs, embassies, consulates, international bodies, national/regional networks of science and innovation delegates, etc.
• Any public administration body (ministry, regional government, local council, parliament, agency…) interested in having access to scientific knowledge.

Importantly, public organisations qualifying as Research Organisation or Higher Education institution are NOT eligible to be a non-academic placement host. 

For organisations that have registered in the Participant register of the EC and have a PIC number, you can check what category your organisation falls under. 

If your organisation is not yet registered, it will need to do so to participate in the call.

Registration

***** Registration to this event is no longer possible given the high number of registrations received.

Pre-registered attendees have already been confirmed by the organisation and details to connect have been sent.

If your policy organisation is still  interested in participate, please reach out to JRC-E4P-ECOSYSTEM@ec.europa.eu.

Programme