Liikanen urges EU-India IST cooperation
EU Commissioner for Enterprise and the Information Society Erkki Liikanen urged more collaboration as he addressed the Euro-India cooperation forum on the information society on 25 March. So far only one Indian organisation has signed a contract for participation in a project under the information society technologies (IST) section of the Sixth Framework Programme (FP6). 'I think we can do much better, taking into account India's outstanding strengths in information and communication technologies,' said Mr Liikanen. An opportunity to redress the imbalance is likely with the publication of the next IST call for proposals. 'The content of this call is not yet fully defined but should contain an emphasis on international cooperation,' said the Commissioner. He then encouraged the forum's participants to visit the CORDIS web service for further information. Mr Liikanen blamed the current dearth of links between the EU and India on international mobility issues, which, he said, have been addressed under FP6 and in a recent Commission proposal. The Commissioner compared the number of Indian researchers in Europe with the number in the US, attributing the lower figure in the EU to language diversity and visa difficulties. The Sixth Framework Programme's Marie Curie Incoming International Fellowships are aimed at attracting researchers from third countries and funding their stay in the EU for between one and two years. An equivalent is also available to facilitate mobility from the EU to third countries such as India. A new proposal on international mobility is now to be put before the Council. Its principal objective is to 'remove unnecessary red tape and to pave the way for the free flow of researchers between our respective regions,' said Mr Liikanen. High level participants at the forum were expected to discuss India's participation in the Géant network. The high speed network currently connects over 3,000 research and education institutions in over 30 countries through 28 national and regional networks. The system allows Europe's researchers to share the 'terabytes of important data' that they produce every day, and, according to Mr Liikanen, without it 'many research projects at the forefront of their fields would simply not be possible.' The Commissioner expressed his confidence that EU-India connectivity can be ensured 'quite rapidly'. Finally, Mr Liikanen explained that collaboration with third countries is beneficial for the EU in that it assists the exploitation of research results on a global scale. Declaring that it is also of great value to international partners, the Commissioner declared stronger cooperation as 'a genuine win-win situation'.
Kraje
India