Last March a Call for expression of interest for the "Voice of the Researchers" (VoR)
enabled the European Commission to select 25 candidates to start-up a group so that their voices can be heard directly. The Commission took the initiative to overcome a lack of direct communication with the primary level of research, i.e. the researchers themselves. A first brainstorming session identified several issues with a direct impact on both the research output as well as researchers themselves within Europe.

The VoR group met in Brussels on 23 March for a brainstorming session and, here, was asked to give its opinion on:
- The social recognition of researchers in Europe or the lack thereof;
- The career perspectives and barriers for researchers;
- The current reality of the common European Research Area (ERA).

The brainstorming session showed sometimes large differences between the conditions in the field and the aspirations of European and national policies. There is a need for an interface organization, the VoR, between the community of European Researchers and the professional organizations. The VoR wants to be a resource to different academic stakeholders and to the European Commission to complement and support their activities structuring the researcher’s careers. The VoR should be a bottom-up movement of researchers, collecting and channelling legitimate concerns to improve the life and working conditions of all European researchers. As such, the VoR remains entirely independent of the current stakeholders and needs as many supporters as possible. The European Commission acts only as a facilitator in this process.

Now it's your turn! That is why you are kindly invited to have a say on the issues discussed with the 25 and let your VoR colleagues know whether the selected issues are important to a much larger group of researchers across Europe too.

To this end, please go to: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/FT7KNRZ and fill in the questionnaire, which will take no more than 5'.

Thank you in advance also for disseminating this information to your colleagues, friends and channels! Deadline: there is none but the questionnaire will automatically close once the 1000th response submitted.

Many thanks in advance!
The EURAXESS Portal team on behalf of the "Voice of the Researchers" group

Three panel discussions were organised on the following topics:

• The influence of private economy on higher education
• A glimpse at the potential of higher education: going beyond skills
• European Higher Education: Area of (UN)Employability?

The Convention was launched with an opening speech by Morten Østergaard, the Danish Minister for Science, Innovation and Higher Education of Danemark. Speakers from different European institutions with educational purposes contributed to the panel discussions. Luxembourg was represented by Germain Dondelinger from the Ministry of Education.

A series of parallel workshops dealt with the topics of graduates’ employability and students mobility (i.e. Erasmus for all, Youth employability, etc.). The aim of these workshops was to collect recommendations on “how to overcome the difficulties young graduates are faced with when finding a job”. The recommendations of the “Copenhagen declaration” will becommunicated to the national governments. The list of recommendations is published on the ESU website (http://www.esu-online.org/news/article/6001/European-students-formulate-10-recommendations-to-get-young-people-out-of-the-job-crisis/)

LuxDoc’s delegate also enjoyed the more informal social activities and was able to engage in many insightfuldiscussions on the national students unions work, management and organisation.

Marie-Line Glaesener for LuxDoc