Marie Curie Actions: Inspiring Researchers - Imdea

But the Marie Curie Actions are not only about makingresearchers mobile or helping them acquire new skills.They are also about ensuring that the researchers enjoya rewarding career. The human aspect of researchshould not be disregarded, as it often has been. Resultscannot be excellent if researchers are not motivated,inspired and fulfi lled. The Actions have adopted thisvision and are promoting better, more stable careersthrough employment contracts with full social securityrights instead of traditional stipends. Given that a betterwork-life balance is known to motivate staff, they insistthat their researchers take full advantage of their rights,including parental and maternity leave. Gender balanceis also a major issue, and all efforts are being made toavoid Europe losing top-class researchers because ofgender discrimination. Finally, the Marie Curie Actionsbelieve research should be based on a sharedresponsibility between science, policy and society,where public policy is based on evidence andwhere researchers engage with the rest of societyto emphasise responsibilities and ensure freedomof thought. In this respect they strongly encourageresearchers to disseminate their achievements to a widerpublic audience and raise awareness of the benefi t oftheir results for citizens’ everyday life.The Actions have shaped the careers of many thousandsof researchers and helped to change the R&D humanresources landscape in Europe. Their name could notbe more suitable: Marie Curie herself has inspired thegenerations of researchers that have followed her andstrive to emulate her success. Like their namesake MarieCurie, who won the Nobel Prize twice, researchers arebright, professional, dynamic and independent.Each scientifi c achievement hides the passionate humanstories of researchers. You will read in this book aboutthe people that shape your world. You will not onlyfi nd out about their scientifi c achievements, but alsohow the human aspect was central to attaining theseachievements and how an effective policy was crucialto reaching excellence in research. You will see how theMarie Curie Actions have been helping to make thesestories a success.11