Legitimizing the interventions recommended in “European Research Area Policy Agenda 2022–2024”

Abstract The EU Directorate General for Research and Innovation’s “European Research Area Policy Agenda: Overview of Actions for the Period 2022–2024” outlines twenty actions to boost research excellence, investment and reform, coordination and support, or green and digital transformation of the academia, in an attempt to create a truly common “European knowledge market.” Filled with strategic planning jargon, the policy specifies the recommended interventions for years to come and with billions of Euros of funding to follow. Using a qualitative critical discourse approach, this study explores policy-making from a linguistic perspective to capture the characteristics of current EU R&I discourse. Language choices have a constitutive role in policy papers due to the discursive capacity for legitimization and subsequent persuasion. The analysis focuses on the persuasive presuppositions induced by certain lexico-grammatical choices, including evaluative and rhetorical devices, and shows how the ERA policy fosters acceptance of a European vision of R&I values.