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Due to spreading conflicts and pressures on academics and universities around the world, researchers are becoming increasingly targeted, putting at risk academic freedom, a key founding principle of MSCA.

Several programs such as Scholars at Risk Europe, or the PAUSE program in France have been protecting and welcoming these scholars by offering to host them for research and education activities in EU higher education institutions.

How can the MSCA support such initiatives? What are the best practices when welcoming vulnerable researchers within your home institution?

This session is directly inspired by the priority of the French Ministry of Higher Education, Research and Innovation to strengthen the relationship between science and society, which is also one of the main objectives of MSCA for 2021-2027. There are major objectives in sharing and making available science and knowledge more globally. This strategy of "Science with and for society" implies renewing the pact between researchers and citizens, injecting more awareness, transparency, trust and reciprocity in their relationship, but also recognizing the new contribution that citizen participation in research could represent and thus developing the aspect of citizen engagement. This strategy is based on a conviction: the relationship between science and society must be recognized as a dimension of scientific activity. How can this necessary link be strengthened through MSCA? 

The degradation of our environment and climate change represent a mirage for the future. The question of our common future and the impact of research is crucial. The MSCA program supports bottom-up and frontier/applied research, as part of the support to the European Green Deal and the resolution of climate and environment related issues. An MSCA Green Charter provides guidance in this regard. It is a code of good practice by which all participants must adhere to this Charter and "do their best" to minimize environmental impact in their research activities. This approach is intended to be structural because it begins at the identification of the project and continues throughout the life of the project.

Thus, during this interactive session, we will first establish an inventory of the early application of the Green Charter in the work of the MSCA laureates, the data expressed will be illustrated by testimonies on the actual experience of eco-responsibility that the laureates had to implement. This approach will be intended to ask many questions related to the integration of the Green Charter in the Green Deal. In order to develop the establishment of this Green Charter, the discussion will turn to the means of promoting the good practices, while seeking how to generate enthusiasm around them.

At the end of this sharing of ideas, a proposal for an advice booklet for the application of the good practices of the Green Charter will be made.