SECURE Deliverable 5.3: Policy Brief Promoting SECURE Research Career Framework

While according to Eurostat data the number of researchers in the EU has risen considerably from 2,25 millions in 2013 to almost 3 millions in 2021, significant challenges persist with precarious research careers in EU countries. Many PhD candidates remain without an employment contract or social protection and many early-career researchers go from one fixed-term contract to the next without clear perspectives for permanent or open-ended contracts in research. Awareness and information about the range of possible careers in research is limited, be it within or outside academia. Training in transferable skills could be expanded, too, enabling researchers to qualify for a broad range of jobs. Talent drain continues to be an issue in several EU Member States. Improving precarious research careers is not just about individual well-being. Career uncertainty leads to risk aversion in science, diminishing scientific productivity and research excellence. Unattractive research careers discourage talented people from engaging in research, limiting the scale of European research in times of a global scientific and technological race. Fragmentation of research career frameworks in terms of regulations, funding or institutional practices inhibit mobility and knowledge exchange in the European Research Area. The EU-funded Sustainable Careers for Researcher Empowerment (SECURE) project aims at improving research careers and reducing career precarity. Between 2023 and 2025, 18 partners from 13 European countries have worked on a toolbox of measures to facilitate the implementation of the Council Recommendation of December 2023 on a ‘European framework to attract and retain research, innovation and entrepreneurial talents in Europe’. The SECURE “toolbox” offers (i) a research career framework (RCF) which consists of a comprehensive suite of actions to reform research careers and (ii) principles for tenure-track like career path models (TTLMs; see SECURE Zenodo repository). Both are intended to help research performing organisations (RPOs) and research funding organisations (RFOs) to adopt practices that increase the attractiveness of research careers, among them options to support the recruitment, training, development, career progression, and mobility of researchers. The work carried out in the project has built on desk research, consultations with researchers and stakeholders, a public survey collecting feedback from researchers and stakeholders across Europe, and trials by six partner organisations to test the RCF and implement selected RCF actions. As such, SECURE is part of a wider range of activities undertaken within the ERA Policy Agenda action 4 on promoting attractive research careers, talent circulation, and mobility. Further supporting elements on top of the Council Recommendation are the new European Charter for Researchers (annex of the Recommendation) and related Human Resources Strategy for Researchers (HRS4R or HR Excellence in Research Award), mutual learning exercise on research careers, job platform EURAXESS, pension scheme RESAVER, European Competence Framework for Researchers (ResearchComp), and Research and Innovation Careers Observatory (ReICO). The ERA Talent Platform is a one-stop-shop gateway for all these activities. Looking forward, the next ERA Policy Agenda 2025-2027 is set to strongly continue the previous work on research careers as a structural policy. With the announced ERA Act forthcoming in 2026, attractive and sustainable research careers should be a keystone of the “fifth freedom” of the EU Single Market, enhancing research, innovation and education across Europe.