With the "Forum.EU", the Federal Government is setting up a new advisory structure to better integrate the relevant stakeholders from research and innovation and is establishing a transparent measurement of success through a monitoring system.
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In the German research and innovation system, a large number of actors are responsible for or at least involved in implementing the six fields of action set out in the National Action Plan for the European Research Area. This includes various Federal Ministries, the Länder, research organisations, higher education institutions, and stakeholders from industry, business and society.
To ensure that these actors are closely involved on a continuous basis, the Federal Government is establishing a new body to disseminate information and perform an advisory function. The new German Forum for European Research and Innovation Policy ("Forum.EU" for short) will be at the heart of the national advisory structure. The "Forum.EU" will promote coherence between regional, national and European research and innovation policy with regard to the measures set out in the Action Plan. The "Forum.EU" replaces the existing structure of the European Policy Discussion Group (Europapolitischer Gesprächskreis), and is coordinated by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research.
The key task of the "Forum.EU", besides providing advice on the implementation of the Action Plan, is preparing expert opinions on the further development of the European Research Area at European level. The forum’s working methods will be agreed by the participants. The forum will draw on existing national governance structures and their bodies (where they exist).
The Action Plan is designed to be an agile, learning instrument, with the focus of the measures being regularly reviewed and refined on the basis of monitoring and expert opinions. The monitoring of this Action Plan has two goals: supporting the coordinated, efficient and agile implementation of the Action Plan, and promoting the further development of the European Research Area at the European level. One element of the national monitoring is regular reviews of whether the goals are being met based on the indicators.
The European Commission produces annual country reports on the national implementation of the European Research Area. These reports are based both on national data and information and on other European or international analyses, such as the innovation scoreboard or relevant OECD publications. The Federal Government will adopt a position on the German country report and discuss this in the "Forum.EU". In the future, this will form the basis for a regular political dialogue with the European Commission. This dialogue provides an opportunity to further develop the European Research Area at national and European level in a continuous and coordinated manner.
