Charities' response to the European Commission call of interest for their involvement in the European Research Area

This paper presents an exploratory study to investigate what could be the role of the charities concerned with scientific research in the European Research Area (ERA). The analysis particularly concentrates on UK and Italy. The questions on which the exploratory study was developed are: 1. “In what specific areas of the ERA did the European Commission (EC) for the involvement of charities? And could there be other areas in which charities might participate?” 2. “Given the role and situation of charities in UK and Italy, what role, if any, could they be willing to play in the ERA? Is it the same as the one proposed by the Commission or not?” In order to answer these questions, the following discussion will focus at first on a short overview of the charity sector, both at the general level and at the national level in UK and Italy. Then a brief presentation of the European Research Area will be given. The hypotheses of the study will then be presented, followed by a methodological section. Results will then be exposed and conclusions drawn.