Global collaboration for life sciences
Developing countries have benefitted significantly from participating in EU-funded projects, while the EU has worked hard to encourage such collaboration. The EU-funded project Impresman-Coeur4life brought life science, biotech and genomics organisations of these countries closer to the EU than ever before. It customised mechanisms for project management capacity building and interactive research for every nation outside the EU involved in the project. In particular, the project considered the unique life science research and specific training needs per country, developing tailor-made training modules that fit each audience. It analysed needs through intense interviews with different life science research actors such as policymakers, government representatives, company managers and research administrators to perfect the training. Impresman-Coeur4life developed valuable recommendations for stimulating international collaboration and disseminated them through research agencies and other related institutions. It showed how research management culture varied among nations and affected new partnerships while transferring best practices to upgrade research cooperation across life-science-health (LSH). Among the project's most important achievements was the successful organisation of 10 3-day interactive workshops that spanned Brazil, Costa Rica, Russia, South Africa and the Ukraine. The training, workshops and materials supplied by the project team helped enable LSH communities in target countries to embark on EU projects and raise collaboration to the next level.
