The European Research Area is composed of all research and development activities, programmes and policies in Europe, which involve a transnational perspective. Together, they enable researchers, research institutions and businesses to increasingly circulate, compete and co-operate across borders. The aim is to give them access to a Europe-wide open space for knowledge and technologies in which transnational synergies and complementarities are fully exploited. ERA consists of activities, programmes and policies, which are designed and operated at all levels: regional, national and European.

The development of ERA is needed to overcome the fragmentation of research in Europe along national and institutional barriers. Fragmentation prevents Europe from fulfilling its research and innovation potential, at a huge cost to Europeans as taxpayers, consumers, and citizens.

While most research activities, programmes and policies take place at regional and national levels, no single country offers sufficient resources to be competitive on the world scale. To strenghten ERA , such activities and policies should be increasingly designed and operated from a transnational perspective, including, where relevant, cross-border co-operation. But this does not mean that they should be centralised in Brussels.Transnational co-operation helps make the most efficient and effective use of national and regional resources.