European Semester 2024: Education and R&I to "feature prominently" in economic policy considerations

The European Commission publishes the Spring package for the European Semester 2024, the annual exercise in coordinating economic, budgetary, employment and social policies within the European Union, on 19/06/2024. The issues of research, innovation and education are featured "prominently", as DG EAC and DG RTD state in their press releases.

The publication shows that Member States have "untapped potential" in terms of R&I performance. Four points of attention are highlighted by a DG RTD official:
• "Compared to its main competitors, Europe is under-investing in research and innovation;
• the need to improve the quality of the science base in all Member States. By this we mean public support for basic science, but also often a highly fragmented landscape with too many unconnected institutions;
• it is crucial to have ecosystems that bring together both research and innovation capacity and the business sector to join forces;
• we observe a weak innovation performance in companies in Europe today".

On the question of education, the publication highlights the results of the Pisa 2022…