Research and innovationis often scattered across the EU, with 80% of public-sector research in Europe being conducted at national level, mainly under national or regional research programmes. This all too often means efforts fail to achieve full results. Following this, the Commission on 18 January 2000 proposed the creation of a European Research Area (ERA) in its Communication 'Towards a European Research Area'. The main aim of the Communication is "... to contribute to the creation of better overall framework conditions for Research in Europe".

Different countries across Europe classify postgraduates as different periods of study, some for example refer to Masters students as postgraduates and others only refer to Doctoral students and post-Docs as postgraduates. This is also reflected in the membership of ESIB, some of whose member National Unions of Students represent all students whether studying Batchelors or Doctoral such as NUS (UK) and SFS (Sweden) whereas others do not represent Doctoral students at all.

However, the issues of postgraduates are becoming more important with initiatives such as the European Research Area and the coming together of this and the creation of a European Higher Education Area.

It has always been necessary to have a close link between the development of new knowledge and education. At the same time, the commercialisation of research results and the commodification of research more generally is threatening the free development of knowledge and creating gaps between those higher education institutions that are closely linked to research and those institutions, departments and faculties that do not have the resources to do research on their own.

ESU strongly believes in the development of individuals through higher education, and in this sense we feel that achieving their full potential in their own personal development is of utmost importance and is closely linked to the quality of curricula and HEIs as such. In this regard, ESU considers the link between research and teaching a crucial one. All higher education students should be able to expect a curriculum drawing on established and current research conducted in the field of study to ensure that creative and innovative ways of thinking and doing are transmitted to those – including students – who quite rightly understand this as part of higher education.

In the future development of research in Europe, ESU see HEIs, and most specialized separate research institutions, as primary centres of research. ESU believes that universal research funding should be available where actual or potential research performance is shown, so that all HEI or individuals are eligible to apply for and can expect some degree of research funding.

It should be emphasised that public funding should be the key source of funding, ensuring the role of higher education as a public good as defined in the Prague Communiqué of Ministers of Education in May 2001. When there is private funding, ESU sees a need for protective systems to be put in place to ensure academic freedom and act as a safeguard against bias in academic endeavour as well as to ensure that costs are not passed onto the student. ESU claims that in addition to the possible publication of research articles in journals there should be an open and free of charge publication, for example, in an European scientific knowledge database on the internet.

ESU strongly believes that the students should be seen as an equal partner in the entire academic community, including the research area. Students very often perform research are in frequent contact with research and researchers, and are the researchers of tomorrow. The quality of our education will play a significant role throughout our working life, and the contact student have with researches can be a contributing when choosing further career path.