Your Excellencies Presidents Sassoli, Dr. Juncker and Dr. von der Leyen,

The candidates for the new EU commissioners were presented last week (Web link to press release). In the new commission the areas of education and research are not explicitly represented anymore and instead are subsumed under the "innovation and youth" title. This emphasizes economic exploitability (i.e. "innovation") over its foundation, which is education and research, and it reduces “education” to “youth” while being essential to all ages.

We, as members of the scientific community of Europe, wish to address this situation early on and emphasize both to the general public, as well as to relevant politicians on the national and European Union level, that without dedication to education and research there will neither exist a sound basis for innovation in Europe, nor can we fulfill the promise of a high standard of living for the citizens of Europe in a fierce global competition.

President von der Leyen, in her mission letter to commissioner Gabriel (Web link to Mandate Letter), has emphasized that “education, research and innovation will be key to our competitiveness”. With this open letter we demand that the EU commission revises the title for commissioner Gabriel to “Education, Research, Innovation and Youth” reflecting Europe’s dedication to all of these crucial areas. We also call upon the European Parliament to request this change in name before confirming the nominees for commissioner.

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La versione originale di questa lettera, comprendente la lista dei firmatari, è disponibile al link: https://indico.uis.no/event/5/