Geneva, 14 December 2006. Today, Janez Potocnik, European Commissioner for Science and Research received a statement of support for the European Charter for Researchers and the Code of Conduct for the Recruitment of Researchers from EIROforum.

“The EIROforum partners warmly welcome this valuable initiative by the European Commission” said Prof. William G. Stirling, Director General of ESRF and present Chairman of EIROforum. “This is an important step towards the implementation of the European Research Area.”

The European Charter for Researchers addresses the roles, responsibilities and entitlements of researchers and their employers or funding organisations. It aims at ensuring that the relationship between these parties contributes to successful performance in the generation, transfer and sharing of knowledge, and to the career development of researchers.

The Code of Conduct for the Recruitment of Researchers aims to improve recruitment, to make selection procedures fairer and more transparent and proposes different means of judging merit. Merit should not just be measured on the number of publications but on a wider range of evaluation criteria, such as teaching, supervision, teamwork, knowledge transfer, management and public awareness activities.

In their statement, signed at the EIROforum Assembly on 15 November 2006, the seven EIROforum organisations support the general principles contained in the Charter and the Code, and will endeavour individually, where appropriate, to implement recommendations that have not yet been undertaken, or which could be improved within their own organisations.

The two documents were carefully studied by the organisations’ human resources experts, who noted the high level of compliance with the guidelines of the Charter and the Code in the EIROforum organisations, where most of the recommendations are implemented and part of internal practice.

The implementation of the recommendations of the Charter and the Code of Conduct will be done in full compliance with the relevant intergovernmental conventions and agreements, staff rules and regulations, applicable to each of the EIROforum organisations.

This is a coordinated EIROforum Press Release. The EIROforum comprises European Organisation for Nuclear Research, CERN; European Fusion Development Agreement, EFDA; European Molecular Biology Laboratory, EMBL; European Space Agency, ESA; European Organisation for Astronomical Research in the Southern Hesmiphere, ESO; European Synchrotron Radiation Facility, ESRF; Institut Laue-Langevin, ILL.