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Zawartość zarchiwizowana w dniu 2023-03-27

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Agreement for scientific and technological cooperation between the European Community and Ukraine

 
The Partnership and Cooperation Agreement between the European Communities and their Member States and Ukraine, that entered into force on 1 March 1998, paved the way to a European Council Common Strategy on Ukraine, adopted on 11 December 1999 at the Helsinki European Council. Within this Common Strategy it emerged that he European Community and Ukraine are pursuing specific Research and Technological Development (RTD) programmes in areas of common interest. Therefore, and on the basis of past experience, both sides have expressed a desire to establish a deeper and broader framework for the conduct of collaboration in science and technology. This cooperation agreement in the field of science and technology forms part of the global cooperation between the European Community and Ukraine.
The programme's overall aim is to encourage, develop and facilitate cooperative activities in fields of common interest where the parties are pursuing research and development activities in science and technology. Cooperative activities shall be conducted on the basis of mutual benefit, timely exchange of information and balanced realisation of economic and social benefits by the Parties.
Cooperation may be pursued in research, technological development and demonstration activities, including basic research, in the following:
- Environment and climate research including earth observation;
- Biomedical and health research;
- Agriculture, forestry and fisheries research;
- Industrial and production technologies;
- Materials research and metrology;
- Non-nuclear energy;
- Transportation;
- Information society technologies;
- Social sciences research;
- Science and technology policy:
- Training and exchange of scientists;
- Other areas upon review and recommendation by the Joint Community-Ukraine Committee.

Cooperation may include the following activities:
- Participation of Ukrainian entities in Community projects, in the areas of cooperative activities, and a reciprocal participation of entities established in the Community in Ukrainian projects in those areas, including scientific and technological organizations, agencies and official bodies of the Parties;
- Free access to, and shared use of research facilities, including installations and sites for monitoring, observation and experimentation, as well as data collections, relevant to the cooperative activities;
- Visits and exchanges of scientists, engineers, or other appropriate personnel for the purposes of participating in seminars, symposia and workshops;
- Exchange of information on practices, legislation, regulations and programmes relevant to cooperation;
- Other activities as may be mutually determined by the Parties in accordance with the applicable policies and programmes.

Joint research projects shall proceed under this Agreement only after the participants in a project have concluded a joint technology management plan.
The Parties may jointly pursue cooperative activities with third parties.

In order to coordinate and facilitate cooperation activities under this Agreement the Parties will establish a Joint Community-Ukraine Committee on cooperation in the field of science and technology. This Committee shall meet in the framework of the relevant Sub-Committee established under the Partnership and Cooperation Agreement. The function of the Committee shall include;
- Overseeing and promoting the activities envisaged under the Agreement;
- Making recommendations pursuant the areas of cooperative activities;
- Proposing activities pursuant the forms of cooperative activities;
- Advising the Parties on ways of enhancing cooperation;
- Providing an annual report on the status and effectiveness of cooperation undertaken under this Agreement;
- Reviewing the efficient and effective functioning of the Agreement;
- Taking account of the importance of regional aspects of the cooperation.

The Committee shall meet once a year, meetings being held alternately in the Community and Ukraine.
Extraordinary meetings may be held as mutually agreed. The Committee shall consist of a limited equal number of official representatives of each Party; it shall establish its own rules of procedure, subject to approval by the Parties. Decisions of the Committee shall be reached by consensus. Minutes, comprising a record of decisions and principal points discussed, shall be taken at each meeting and shall be agreed by those persons selected from each side to chair jointly the meeting. The Committee annual report will be submitted to the Cooperation Council and the Cooperation Committee established under the Partnership and Cooperation Agreement.

Funding and taxes exemptions arrangements:
- Cooperative scientific and technological activities shall be subject to the availability of funds and to the applicable laws and regulations, policies and programmes of the Community and Ukraine. As a rule, each Party shall bear the costs of discharging its responsibilities under this Agreement, including costs of participation in meetings of the Committee.
- When specific scientific and technological cooperative forms benefit from financial support of the European Community, either directly or indirectly through organizations set up with the participation of the European Community, provided to participants of Ukraine, any such grants, financial or other contributions from the European Community to participants of Ukraine in support of their scientific and technological activities, shall be granted tax and customs preferences. Any such grants shall be exempt by Ukraine from customs payments, any customs duties and fees, value added taxes, income taxes and any other taxes and duties of an equivalent effect.

Entry of personnel and equipment:

Each Party shall take all reasonable steps and use its best efforts, in accordance with its laws and regulations, to facilitate entry to, stay in and exit from its territory of persons, material, data and equipment involved in or used in cooperative activities.
Information and intellectual property.

Intellectual Property Rights;

- Ownership, allocation and exercise of rights; Each Party shall ensure that the other Party may obtain the rights to intellectual property allocated to it according the following principles; adequate protection of intellectual property, taking account of the contributions of the Parties in determining their rights and interests, effective exploitation of results; non-discriminatory treatment of participants and protection of confidential information.
- Technology Management Plan (TMP); The TMP is a specific agreement to be concluded between the participants about the implementation of joint research and the respective rights and obligations of the participants. With respect to intellectual property, the TMP will normally address, among other things, ownership, protection, user rights for research and development purposes, exploitation and dissemination, including arrangements for joint publication, the rights and obligations of visiting researchers and dispute settlement procedures. The TMP may also address foreground and background information, licensing and deliverables. The TMPs shall be developed taking into account the aims of the joint research, the relative financial or other contributions of the Parties or participants, the advantages and disadvantages of licensing by territory or for fields of use, the transfer of export-controlled data, goods or services, requirements imposed by the applicable laws and other factors deemed appropriate by the participants.
_ Information or intellectual property created in the course of joint research and not addressed in the TMP shall be allocated, with the approval of the Parties, according to the principles set out in the TMP. In case of disagreement, such information or intellectual property shall be owned jointly by all the participants involved in the joint research from which the information or intellectual property results. Each participant to whom this provision applies shall have the right to use such information or intellectual property for his own exploitation with no geographical limitation
_While maintaining the conditions of competition in areas affected by the Agreement, each Party shall endeavour to ensure that rights acquired pursuant to this Agreement and arrangements made under it are exercised in such a way as to encourage, in particular the dissemination and use of information created, disclosed or otherwise made available, and the adoption and implementation of international technical standards.
. _ Termination or expiry of this Agreement shall not affect rights or obligations.

- Copyright works; Contractual and other implementing arrangements shall provide for treatment of copyright belonging to the Parties or to their participants consistent with the Berne Convention for the protection of literary and artistic work (Paris Act 1971).

- Scientific literary works; Without prejudice to Section V, and unless otherwise agreed in the TMP, publication of results of research shall be made jointly by the Parties or participants to that joint research. Subject to the foregoing general rule, the following procedures shall apply;
_In the case of publication by a Party or public bodies of that Party of scientific and technical journals, articles, reports, books, including video and software arising from joint research pursuant to this Agreement, the other Party or public bodies of that Party shall be entitled within the limits specified within the TMP to a worldwide, non-exclusive, irrevocable, royalty-free licence to translate, reproduce, adapt, transmit and publicly distribute such works;
_ The Parties shall ensure that literary works of a scientific character arising from joint research pursuant to this Agreement shall be disseminated as widely as possible;
_ All copies of a copyright work to be publicly distributed and prepared under this provision shall indicate the names of the author(s) of the work unless an author(s) explicitly declines to be named. They shall also bear a clearly visible acknowledgement of the cooperative support of the Parties.

- Undisclosed information;
_ Documentary undisclosed information; each Party shall identify at the earliest possible moment and preferably in the technology management plan the information that they wish to remain undisclosed, taking into account, inter alia, confidentiality and potential commercial value. Each Party shall ensure that it clearly identify undisclosed information. Undisclosed information may be disseminated by the receiving for the specific purposes of the joint research underway, provided that any undisclosed information so disseminated shall be pursuant to an agreement of confidentiality and shall be readily recognisable as such, as set out above. With the prior written consent of the Party providing undisclosed information, the receiving Party may disseminate such undisclosed information more widely than otherwise permitted The Parties shall cooperate in developing procedures for requesting and obtaining prior written consent for such wider dissemination, and each Party will grant such approval to the extent permitted by its domestic policies, regulations and laws.
_ Non-documentary undisclosed information; non-documentary undisclosed or other confidential information provided in seminars and other meetings arranged under this Agreement, or information arising from the attachment of staff, use of facilities, or joint projects, shall be treated by the Parties according to the principles specified for documentary information provided however that the recipient of such undisclosed or other confidential or privileged information has been made aware of the confidential character of the information communicated at the time such communication is made.
_ Control; each Party shall endeavour to ensure that undisclosed information received by it under this Agreement shall be controlled as provided herein. If one of the Parties becomes aware that it will be, or may be reasonably expected to become, unable to meet the non-dissemination provisions shall immediately inform the other Party. The Parties shall thereafter consult to define an appropriate course of action.

Other agreements and transitional provisions;

This Agreement is without prejudice to other existing Agreements or arrangements between the Parties or any Agreement or arrangement between the Parties and third parties. The Parties shall endeavour to bring under the terms of this Agreement those existing arrangements for scientific and technological cooperation between the Community and Ukraine that fall under the scope of the areas of cooperative activities.