Events

Mobility means more than getting from one place to another. It refers to people moving across borders, and increasingly across sectors, to study, train, work or do research. It is a right rooted in EU citizenship and the free movement of workers. A fundamental right rooted in EU citizenship and the free movement of workers, mobility is also a key policy tool funded by the Union to build skills, connect labour markets and strengthen the European Research Area (ERA). However, unlocking its full potential requires directly confronting the systemic hurdles that slow down exchanges, while actively identifying, gathering, and scaling up best practices across institutions.

ERA-Shuttle (Accelerating ERA by Sharing Unique Talents for Healthy Life and Environment) applies this idea to research careers. The project is funded under Horizon Europe’s ERA Talents call and coordinated by the University of Split. It aims to strengthen research and innovation systems in Widening Countries such as Croatia, Poland and Malta through training and secondments between academic and non-academic organisations, such as CERIC-ERIC.

The project’s third Summer School, “Career and Personal Growth for Human-Centric Leadership in the ERA”, took place at the University of Malta’s Valletta Campus from 5 to 9 October 2026, after earlier editions in Split and Gdańsk. It was aimed at researchers, research managers and administrators, and its programme covered AI in research and higher education, grant writing, career development and knowledge transfer.

On Thursday morning the school turned to careers and mobility itself. CERIC-ERIC Project Officer Marina Coricciati moderated a session with representatives of projects funded under the 2022 and 2024 ERA Talents calls: Andreja Jagnjić (University of Split), Janika Leoste (Tallinn University of Technology), Marija Radosavljević (University of Niš), Lukáš Daubner (University of Tartu) and Tăchiţă Vlad-Bubulac (Petru Poni Institute of Macromolecular Chemistry, Romanian Academy).  The event convened researchers, research managers, and institutional representatives to gain insights from real-world scenarios, explore practical solutions, and draw inspiration from successful models for gathering and capitalizing on collective knowledge across European mobility initiatives.

“Mobility is a vital engine for the European Research Area, but cross-border exchanges are far too often slowed down by complex administrative barriers Mobility is a vital engine for the European Research Area, yet exchanges are often slowed down by complex administrative barriers,” said Marina Coricciati. “By bringing researchers and research managers together to candidly address these hurdles, collect proven best practices, and learn from one another’s real-world experiences, we can turn individual mobility into a powerful force for institutional transformation.”

After short projects presentations, a first panel followed the “secondee journey”: how secondments are designed, which capacity-building approaches work, and what host and sending institutions have learned. The second panel looked at what happens afterwards. It covered the administrative barriers that still make cross-sector exchanges hard to organise, and what it takes to turn individual experiences into lasting structural change in Widening countries, the EU Member States and associated countries with lower research and innovation performance.

“Our panels explored how to organise useful secondments, support participants, work through administrative barriers and turn individual learning into changes within our institutions. Sharing our challenges and the approaches we have tried was particularly valuable,” wrote Janika Leoste in a LinkedIn post about her exeperience.

Alongside mobility and secondments, CERIC-ERIC also addressed another key topic: the industrial implications of research. Angela Zennaro, ILO Senior Officer, led a training session on the key strategic decisions involved in bringing an innovative technology to market.

Working in two groups, participants developed a commercialisation and intellectual property (IP) strategy for a hypothetical startup. The first group focused on market opportunities, business models and licensing arrangements. The second dealt with IP protection and international IP expansion. The session ended with a joint discussion of the reasoning behind each group’s choices, with the aim of combining their findings into a single, coherent strategy.

Secondments and training are at the heart of ERA-Shuttle, which connects universities in Croatia, Poland and Malta with non-academic partners across Europe. Researchers and staff who would like to know more can find details of the programme on the project website: https://erashuttle.eu/secondments/