RESEARCHERS ON THE MOVE...

BUT IT'S A ROCKY ROAD

Leuven, 1 March 2010. The League of European Research Universities (LERU) makes recommendations to improve the social security of internationally mobile researchers.

Researchers face some daunting obstacles when they decide to spend time abroad to conduct their research. Besides the obvious issues related to the job, housing, travel, partners and children, they need to worry about some not so obvious, technical, legalistic and tricky matters. For example, correct information about what happens to their health insurance and pension rights may be difficult to get and complex to understand. Worse, they may risk losing part or all of their family benefits or of their pensions when they go abroad.

The situation is particularly hard on early stage researchers, who, because of the particular employment conditions they tend to work in, often do not enjoy the same level of social protection as researchers who are more advanced in their careers.

This is why LERU is calling for improvements in the social security arrangements for mobile researchers. In a just published paper, LERU outlines a set of nine recommendations to start tackling some of the most pressing problems. They include a proposal to grant at least a minimal social protection to early stage researchers who do not have the professional status of employee.

Another recommendation asks the EU and its member states to make sure that the new EU regulations which will come into force in May 2010 are interpreted and implemented in ways that are consistent with the way in which the world of research is organised. To do so, they should work closely with universities and other research performing organisations.

LERU also suggests that the case of researchers can serve as a test case that may later be applied to other classes of highly mobile workers.

Danny Pieters, main author of the paper and professor of social security law at the K.U.Leuven comments: "We should be attentive to all elements causing a researcher to suffer disadvantages merely because of the fact that s/he does research in another country than the one in which s/he previously worked. These mobility-related disadvantages should be eliminated for all workers. This is particularly important for the research world as it allows more mobility, more cooperation and more competition throughout Europe. As such, it could lay the very foundations of a truly dynamic European Research Area".

The LERU briefing paper has been submitted to the EU Ministers responsible for Research and for Employment. Council conclusions are to be published next week and a joint meeting of the Ministers will be held on 8 March 2010.  LERU plans to release its position paper and hold a public event on this subject in April 2010.

To know more about LERU :

• Universiteit van Amsterdam

   

• Universitat de Barcelona

   

• University of Cambridge

   

• University of Edinburgh

   

• Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg

   

• Université de Genève

   

• Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg

   

• Helsingin yliopisto (University of Helsinki)

   

• Universiteit Leiden

   

• Katholieke Universiteit Leuven

   

• Imperial College London

   

• University College London

   

• Lunds universitet

   

• Università degli Studi di Milano

   

• Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München

   

• University of Oxford

   

• Université Pierre et Marie Curie, Paris 6

   

• Université Paris-Sud 11

   

• Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm

   

• Université de Strasbourg

   

• Universiteit Utrecht

   

• Universität Zürich