Alliance for life sciences: from strategies to actions in central and eastern europe
The gap in Research and Innovation (R&I) performance, which persists despite considerable investments from the European Structural and Investment Funds (ESIF) in the lower-performing regions of the EU, is an issue with major socio-economic and political consequences. In Health R&I the gap has a profound impact on distribution of funding from the EU Framework Programmes as well as on hindering the EU-wide impact of R&I on health and quality of life. 

With A4L_ACTIONS, we aim to address roots of this situation in the lower-performing Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) by improving culture, governance, recognition and innovation potential of the health research-performing institutions. Our goal is to increase their attractiveness for collaborations with advanced Europe and create spill-over effects in the whole region. As the Alliance4Life, we are an established network of progressive health research institutions in CEE and a source of successfully piloted good practice. By building upon our results and impact achieved so far, we will convert our recommendations and strategies into actions as follows:

- Culture fostering excellence: piloting peer-evaluation and assessment of institutional practice as a strategic management tool, professionalizing research administration;

- Recognition and trust towards CEE: attracting advanced partners to identified pockets of excellence, supporting scientific ideas originating in CEE, initiating new international projects and collaborations with industry;

- Career policy nurturing talent: training and networking next generation of leaders, upgrading institutional career systems;

- Impact on innovation: raising the competences of Technology Transfer specialists, creating industry relations platform linking academia and industry;

- Spill-over effects: sharing, inspiring, communicating with stakeholders and policy makers; using the established networks to gain advice, new collaborations and EU-wide impact.