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European Network of Environmental Research Organisations
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ENERO position paper on environment in research programs

“Environment” in European research programs 
The ENERO network of Research and Technology Organisations (RTOs) 

ENERO

ENERO is network of European RTOs in environmental research and development since 1992.  ENERO member representatives meet at a regular basis to exchange views on the European RTO research agenda in the broader environmental field and set up working groups and workshops on emerging environmental topics. ENERO provides travel grants for RTO junior researchers for short term stays in other European RTOs. An overview of ENERO RTO members and contacts can be found on www.enero.eu.

Position of ENERO on the position of “Environment” in EU research programs

The ENERO network is pleased to observe the growing integration of environmental research and development in the European research agenda. “Environment” is no longer a separate research domain in European research programs but takes an essential part of many research domains, often connected to broader sustainable development objectives. The ENERO network strongly supports this evolution because we consider environmental aspects as an essential element in many of the key societal, technological, industrial and economical challenges of tomorrow. 

However, this evolution also carries a risk. Scattering environmental aspects in the Europeans programs may limit opportunities for finding synergies between environmental improvements in different global and industrial challenges. 

ENERO asks European Commission and its stakeholders to be aware of this risk and to install instruments that circumvent this drawback.  Such instruments could explore, reconstitute and strengthen environmental synergies, guide in trade-offs and prevent losses between different research program lines. For example, in the next research and innovation framework programme “Horizon Europe”, it can be considered to create a  cross-cutting cluster that links the areas of intervention related to “Environment” in the different global and industrial challenges

Further steps

ENERO would be glad to assist the European Commission in exploring instruments to  strengthen synergies between environmental topics in different research program lines.