Providing China with a gateway to European S&T
To mark the launch of the China-EU Science and Technology Year (CESTY), CORDIS News takes a closer look at CO-REACH, one of the largest joint China-EU research initiatives, and its efforts to better coordinate cooperation between national research programmes in Europe and China. ERA (European Research Area) -NET schemes are designed to support the coordination and mutual opening up of national and regional research programmes. Svend Otto Remøe of the Research Council of Norway is one of the partners in the network. He explained why such an initiative is needed: 'China has become an extremely important partner in the area of S&T. And while most EU Member States have bilateral S&T agreements and cooperation programmes with China, such efforts are small and disparate. 'The idea behind CO-REACH is to map out and study the landscape of existing bilateral programmes in order to try to launch a set of initiatives that can improve their coherency,' Mr Remøe told CORDIS News. Comprising 13 partners representing three national ministries, five research councils and five scientific academies from eight European countries, the initiative already has an extensive data-pool on which to base its study. Since starting the mapping in 2005, the partners have collected information about some 40 bilateral programmes in a range of science and technology disciplines. 'For the time being, we have been mapping what these programmes do, how they are run and funded, their instruments and their priorities,' explained Mr Remøe. 'We are now also looking at to what degree these programmes are similar or dissimilar so that we can also look upon the landscape in the context of legal, national, financial, political constraints, to detect the boundary conditions.' While the mapping has confirmed the fragmented or disconnected nature of these bilateral programmes, it has also thrown up some commonalities. 'Mobility is the core priority, actually it's the main priority of these bilateral programmes as they have initiated and proliferated over time,' noted Mr Remøe. 'All countries have given priority to mobility-related instruments such as personnel, joint workshops, travel support. It's only later that R&D [research and development] support has been added.' This contrasts somewhat to the decision announced at the China-EU S&T Year to focus cooperation efforts in the key priority areas of climate change, health, environment, food and biotechnology. 'CO-REACH will have to respond to this and come up with new initiatives to help national bilateral programmes re-focus their activities and identify specific priorities for collaboration,' said Mr Remøe. Based on the results of the mapping, the ERA-NET has produced a detailed directory of European funding mechanisms for research with China, which Mr Remøe said would later contribute to the development of joint activities between CO-REACH partners and the eventual establishment of new European programmes of research cooperation with China. The network will also seek to increase its membership between now and 2010. 'This should provide China with a gateway to opportunities for cooperation with European S&T,' said Mr Remøe. The potential of CO-REACH as a tool to increase cooperation has not gone unnoticed. At the China-EU Summit in Helsinki on 9 September, leaders encouraged Chinese organisations to get involved in CO-REACH so as to help identify priorities and appropriate channels for future S&T collaborations between China and Europe. Speaking at a press conference following the launch of CESTY on 9 October, European Commissioner for Science and Research Janez Potocnik said that S&T agreements needed a much clearer focus to ensure that they fully benefit Europe and partnering countries. 'That is why we intend to tackle international cooperation under FP7 [Seventh Framework Programme] and in organised debates and communications on the ERA. It is one of the issues that needs to be addressed in a more systematic way,' he said.
Countries
China