The successful grant holders are intended to strengthen bilateral cooperation in the areas of clean energy, health technologies, and sustainable cities. The grant partnerships will be monitored to identify cooperation barriers, best practices, as well as science and innovation outcomes in these areas. For follow-up funding of larger research-innovation project partnerships, thirty representatives of Australian research agencies and governmental bodies were informed about CAESIE and Horizon2020 in Canberra, Australia on 15 October. Multi-lateral funding instruments were promoted towards creating joint Australian-EU-member states funding initiatives. The call and the funding initiative are components of a CAESIE strategy to develop a new program of enhancing Australian-European SME-researcher cooperation. Australian and European CAESIE partners (DI, AIRG, ATSE, DLR, VTT, FhG) discussed the program and identified potential collaboration issues with the new EU-Pacific project PACE-Net+, represented by Prof Jean-François Marini, at the annual CAESIE meeting in Canberra, on 16 October. The CAESIE program has been supported by the Deputy Secretary of the Australian Department of Industry, Patricia Kelly, the EU-Ambassador to Australia and to New Zealand, His Excellency Mr Sem Fabrizi, and the European Commission CAESIE project officer, Armand Beuf. CAESIE has received strategic advice from David Miles (former Chair, Innovation Australia Board), Rosie Hicks (Australian National Fabrication Facility), Michael Sondermann (Federal Ministry of Education and Research, Germany), and Eckart Bierdümpel (Fraunhofer Gesellschaft). Scientific Affairs Officers of EU-Member States embassies in Australia, e.g. from Germany, Dr. Anne Braun, and France, Mrs Marie-Hélène Wehr, have ensured their assistance to CAESIE.
Further information on CAESIE could be obtained at www.caesie.org or from Dr. Gerd Ruecker (gerd.ruecker(at)dlr.de).
