The first European Interest Group Meetings for STI cooperation with the Republic of Korea and Japan took place on 17th June 2014 in Brussels. Ten European Funding Organizations, the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) as well as the Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST) took part in this joint meeting. The meeting was also attended by the chair of SFIC, Mr. Dan Andrée and by representatives of the European Commission.
The European Interest Group Meetings are organized to provide an opportunity for European Member States to coordinate and synchronize efforts aiming at the development of sustainable, multilateral research collaboration with Asian/Oceanian countries without EC funding. As such, they will be a forum for STI stakeholders from both European MS/AS and Asian partner countries. The aim of this first meeting was to start a discussion process on how to continue with collaborative funding initiatives without the backbone of the horizontal ERA-Nets and connecting more agencies with Japan and Korea. The participating funding agencies discussed the importance of coordinated cooperation activities between Member States towards Korea and Japan, for example joint funding schemes. KONNECT and JEUPISTE were mandated by the participants to continue the process of European Interest Group Meetings. Meanwhile, in December 2014 the European Interest Group Japan was launched and a joint call as a first coordinated cooperation activity of the EIG Japan was decided.
The Kick-off-Meeting of the European Interest Group Korea will take place on 25th March in Brussels. We would like to discuss the benefit of the EIG Korea for multilateral / bilateral cooperation for funding organizations, the type of coordinated cooperation activities within the EIG Korea and main thematic priorities for upcoming activities. An open joint call within the EU project KONNECT is planned for 2015 and details will be discussed. The EIG Korea should be an open forum for information exchange and open discussion between European funding organizations and Korean partners.
Contact:
Dr. Sabine Puch
Phone: +49 228 3821 1423
E-Mail: sabine.puch(at)dlr.de
