CONCERT-Japan Project: Press Release of 2011
The CONCERT-Japan project complemented the current Euro-Japanese science and technology cooperation by bringing together the interested stakeholders around the ERA-NET scheme. The first Stakeholders’ Conference on 27 July 2011 in Budapest/Hungary and Pilot Joint Call Planning Meeting on 5-6 December 2011 in Muelheim/Germany were designed for discussing the future joint activities with the programme owners and managers that are interested in Euro-Japanese cooperation in STI.
For the second half of the first year, the project mostly concentrated on taking stock of the ongoing STI cooperation between Europe and Japan and thus paving the way for the structuring of the future joint activities. Based on the CONCERT-Japan Questionnaire for Funding Organizations the “Database of STI Cooperation Programmes between European Countries and Japan” has been published on the CONCERT-Japan website (www.concertjapan.eu). The CONCERT-Japan “Recommendatory Report on the Results of the Mapping of STI Cooperation Programmes” compiled the views and recommendations derived from the mapping of relevant bilateral, multilateral and unilateral science, technology and innovation cooperation programmes. The CONCERT-Japan “Report on Future Preferences and Priorities on STI Cooperation between European Countries and Japan”, on the other hand, included the consolidated results of the answers received from the online questionnaire relating to future tendencies of the programme managers or owners in European Countries with regard to STI cooperation with Japan and vice versa.
As a result of the activities within this very first year of the project, it is planned to publish a multilateral joint call with the participation of interested funding organizations both from Europe and Japan in the second half of 2012 under the name “CONCERT-Japan Research and Innovation Call”. Discussions on call fields and topics, involved countries, target call beneficiaries as well as call budget and funding period are expected to be finalized early 2012. The pre-announcement of the joint call is planned be published within July 2012.