Concept and Objectives

EULARINET (Co-ordinating Latin America Research and Innovation NETworks) goal is to strengthen bi-regional dialogue on S&T between EU Member States (MS), Associated States (AS) and Latin American Partner Countries (LAPC) at policy, programme and institutional (research entities) level, thus contributing to a three fold objective:

a) Promote the joint identification, setting up, implementation and monitoring of mutual interest priorities of future work programmes across the Specific Programmes of FP7.

b)  Joint definition of S&T co-operation policies

c)  Support and stimulate the participation of LAPC in FP7

EULARINET will establish a co-ordination platform bringing together the key EU and LA policy makers and programme managers, as well as representatives of research entities, universities and the private sector, eminent researchers and representatives of the civil society, to set up dialogue fora at different levels, leading to the identification of S&T policies and priorities and defining specific activities to promote, support and stimulate participation of LA researchers in FP7 and to strengthen international S&T cooperation. These activities will be aimed at strengthening the EU – LA Knowledge Area.

As political background, EULARINET will consider and develop the on going EU – LA dialogue on S&T, since the Río Summit in June 1999, the ALCUE´s Brasilia Action Plan for S&T Co-operation, the Guadalajara Declaration to set up the EU – LA Knowledge Area and finally the Vienna Summit in 2006 and the conclusions of the preparatory Senior Officials meeting in Salzburg, as a basis to go further in the practical implementation and updating of the existent policy guidelines.

EULARINET will also consider the achievements of existent co-operation programmes, such

as:

i)  The multilateral programme CYTED with two MS (Spain and Portugal) and 19 LA countries, involving more than 15.000 researchers in research actions (thematic networks and projects);

ii) The on going ERA-NET EULANEST, co-ordinating the national programmes of International Co-operation in S&T of 4 MS (Spain, Portugal, France, Germany), 1 AS (Norway) addressed to LA, with the aim to launch a joint call specifically dedicated to LA in 2008.

iii)  Other National Programmes such as Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, IRD, etc.

With this respect, major objectives are:

o Facilitating a bi-regional and, in the case of Mexico and Central America, Andean Countries and MERCOSUR, a complementary bilateral sub-regional dialogue, involving stakeholders from policy making, science community and industries. The dialogue will address each others S&T potentials, policy goals and demands to define common priorities and to develop joint scenarios and implementation strategies for strengthening the S&T co-operation both at sub-regional level and bi-regional one.

o Facilitating the recommendations of the Brazilian Action Plan reiterated by the Salzburg senior officials meeting.

o Implementing strategic analysis based on evaluation, impact assessment and scenarios studies, in order to provide a knowledge base for the bi-regional/bilateral dialogue and to support priority setting and scenario development

o Strengthening the participation of LAPC in the 7th EU Framework Program with emphasis in the “Co-operation” part of the programme.

o Supporting the coherence and co-ordination of S&T co-operation activities with other EU policies (external, environmental, innovation etc.) towards the LAPC with emphasis on the EU – Latin America (LA) dialogue on S&T to set up the EU – LA Knowledge Area and the Education Policy (Life Long Learning Program). Exploitation of the full potential of combining different S&T co-operation instruments.

o Ensuring sustainability of the co-ordination and co-operation activities and building of joint venture of MS, AS and LAPC

o Setting up S&T related activities addressed to the challenges of the globalization of research and reaching the global Millennium Goals To increase the efficiency by avoiding redundancies, to ensure the sustainability of successful activities of the past and to learn lessons, EULARINET will consider relevant previous and ongoing activities both inside and outside the EU RTD Framework Programme, as well as links with other EU policies.

To increase the efficiency by avoiding redundancies, to ensure the sustainability of successful activities of the past and to learn lessons, EULARINET will consider relevant previous and ongoing activities both inside and outside the EU RTD Framework Programme, as well as links with other EU policies.

Contribution to the co-ordination of high quality research

The proposed project is consistent with the objective of the area addressed, Activity 1 ofInternational Co-operation ‘Bi-regional co-ordination of S&T co-operation including priority setting and definition of S&T co-operation policies (FP7-INCO-2007-1)’, through the networking and building up of strategic partnerships between EU and LA policy makers, programme managers and S&T stakeholders.

The EULARINET proposal intends to network European multiple stakeholders (research entities, universities, industry, policy-makers, programme managers and civil society) establishing balanced and multidisciplinary partnerships to identify priorities of mutual interest for both regions.

Through these activities EULARINET will contribute to the building of the EU – LA Knowledge Area addressed by the Guadalajara Declaration and, particularly, to strengthening the international dimension of the ERA by co-ordinating bilateral policies of research co-operation with LA, both within and among MS.

In addition EULARINET intends to help developing a more coherent approach of the EU towards scientific co-operation with LAPC in the present and future Framework Programmes.

Through such coordinating activities, EULARINET will enable the strenghtening of the ERA and will facilite the scientific co-operation with LA, thus contributing to the co-ordination of high quality research.

The necessary coverage of the targeted region will be addressed through sub-regional structures, covering the global LA region and taking into account its heterogenety and diversity

⇒ Andean Countries: Chile, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia plus Bolivia, co-ordinated by Chile and Colombia;

⇒ MERCOSUR: Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, Brazil and Venezuela, co-ordinated by Brazil and Argentina;

⇒ Central America: México, Costa Rica, Salvador, Panamá, Honduras, Nicaragua, Republica Dominicana, Guatemala, co-ordinated by México and Nicaragua.

Overall Strategy

The overall strategy is designed to achieve, through the whole activity, the main objectives and deliverables of the specific area addressed, i.e. Activity 1 of International Co-operation “Bi-regional co-ordination of S&T co-operation, including priority setting and definition of S&T co-operation policies (FP7-INCO-2007-1)”.

• Therefore, to achieve the general objective of the Capacities Programme, i.e. “to support and stimulate the participation of third countries in the FP”, a specific work-package with dedicated activities will be set up (WP2).

• The strengthening of bi-regional dialogues to co-ordinate S&T co-operation, helping to define S&T co-operation policies, will be approached through setting up bi-regional policy dialogues platforms bringing together policy makers from the EU and LAPC, i.e   epresentatives of the EU MS Ministries of S&T and of the National Organisations of S&T (ONCYT) from LA. A sub-regional approach, with a global co-ordination to promote regional integration, setting up sub-regional policy dialogue platforms (WP3).

• The identification of research priorities of mutual interest and supporting the bi-regional policy dialogues, and the establishment of specific bi-regional Science – Industry dialogue platforms will be carried out, in order to set up balanced partnerships involving EU and LA stakeholders from research centres, universities, industry, government and civil society (WP4). The sub-regional approach, with a global co-ordination to promote regional integration, will also be used to set up sub-regional policy dialogue platforms, and will enable to build on the connections established in WP3 and generate synergies.

• The analysis, monitoring and review of international S&T co-operation patterns between the EU and LA will also be addressed, as a means to understand the difficulties and characteristics of the existent S&T co-operation, in order to facilitate the uptake of the common identified S&T policies and research priorities (WP1).Through the assesment of EU-LA FP cooperation activities, the effectiveness of these activities can be analysed and evidence-based strategies developed, thereby improving EU-LA cooperation.

• Dissemination of results will be extremely important to ensure wide diffussion of the project findings, and to spread out the opportunities of S&T co-operation under FP7 and other multi-lateral funding schemes through the whole scientific, technological and industrial communities in both regions (WP5).

• A state of the art management structure, as described in section 2 of this proposal, will be adopted. A twinning principle with leaders from MS and co-leaders from LAPC will be implemented to ensure the development of well balanced partnerships and ownership by MS and LAPC of the project activities and findings (WP6).

• During the implementation of Eularinet, new LA partners may be brought into the Consortium to re-inforce the representativity of the sub-regions.