Following a meeting of the Committee of the Regions' Commission for Social Policy, Education, Employment, Research and Culture (SEDEC) with DG R&I, a Joint Action Plan between the two bodies and the Joint Research Centre (JRC) has been published. 

The action plan follows four priority areas highlighted by DG R&I, the CoR and the JRC:

• No one left behind, evidence-based policymaking in the regions
• Close consultation on the implementation of the European Research Area (ERA), the European Education Area (EEA) and the Digital Education Action Plan (DEAP), Horizon Europe Missions and other initiatives
• Raising awareness and dissemination of funding opportunities. Exchange of best practices in the fields of research and innovation, education, culture, youth and sport
• Co-funding of programmes: top-up with Euorpean Structural Investment Funds (ESIF).

Across all four priority areas, 26 concrete actions have been outlined in the plan in order to increase regions' administrative and implementation capacity. The actions will be followed-up twice a year with monitoring reports to track progress, with an annual meeting in the context of the SEDEC Committee meeting used to assess the progress acheived.

In June 2020 ERRIN published an input paper on the European Research Area and we are pleased to see many of our recommendations reflected in this new action plan. We look forward to continued collaboration with the CoR on initiatives such as the Knowledge Exchange Platform as well as other excellent proposals made in the Joint Action Plan. 

Read the full plan, including all 26 actions, here. Read more about ERRIN's work on the ERA, EEA and Horizon Europe Missions here.