Abstract and Background

In its Vienna meeting of 28-30/06/06, the Monitoring Committee for the Euro-Mediterranean S&T Cooperation in RTD, also named the Barcelona RTD Committee (MoCo), has welcome the proposal of the European Commission to include as an activity of the INCO Program within the Capacities program of FP7 an INCO-Net coordination platform for selected target areas, including the Mediterranean Partners Countries (MPC).

These coordination platforms aim to bring together policy makers and stakeholders of MPCs and EU countries in the framework of the dialogue structured through the MoCo. This proposed project, Mediterranean Innovation and Research Co-ordination Action (acronym: MIRA), aims to create a dialogue and action platform to identify common interests in research areas, set-up S&T priorities and supporting capacity building activities. MIRA will promote actions in order to monitor, develop, promote and contribute to the creation of synergies among the different cooperation S&T programs between the Mediterranean Partner Countries (MPCs) and the member states of the EU, and foster the participation of the MPC in the Framework Programme.

The present Coordination Action (CA) aims at developing the objectives of the INCO-Net Mediterranean Partner Countries (MPC) action by, among others:

1. Creating a dialogue platform using the state of the art of the ICT technologies, which will enable the discussion between relevant stakeholders from both sides of the Mediterranean to improve the S&T cooperation by, among other means, connecting and facilitating the interaction between the dispersed S&T cooperation initiatives already existing supported by the Member States, the European Commission and other political bodies;
2. Addressing training activities to improve the quality of the participation and management of the partners of FP7 from the MPC;
3. Creating discussion platforms and organizing meetings to monitor and discuss the content of the Thematic priorities of FP7 in term of the common interest of the EU and MPC;
4. Creating an Observatory of the EU-MPC S&T cooperation, which will agree indicators for the monitoring of RTD cooperation activities;
5. Creating networks of research institutions and technological transfer services from both sides of the Mediterranean, to support strategic collaboration and provide a reference element for the development of the Euro-Mediterranean Innovation Space. All these activities are aimed at providing a strong institutional basis for the EU-MPC S&T cooperation.

Concept and Objectives

The Barcelona Declaration adopted at the Euro-Mediterranean Conference 27-28/11/95, included in its recommendations: “…recognizing that science and technology have a significant influence on socio­economic development, agree to strengthen scientific research capacity and development, contribute to the training of scientific and technical staff and promote participation in joint research projects based on the creation of scientific networks;”

Science and technology cooperation will focus on:

• Cromoting research and development and tackling the problem of the widening gap in scientific achievement, taking into account the principle of mutual advantage;
• Stepping up exchanges of experience in the scientific sectors and policies which might best enable the Mediterranean partners to reduce the gap between them and their European neighbours and to promote the transfer of technology; helping train scientific and technical staff by increasing participation in joint research projects.

Following the Ministerial meeting at Sophia Antipolis in March 1995, a Monitoring Committee was set up; this Committee met for the first time immediately after the Barcelona Conference. It focuses on making recommendations for the joint implementation of the policy priorities agreed at Ministerial level.

The European Neighbourhood Policy, ENP, (Com (2004)373 final) is a key component of the European policy, as it integrates components of the three “pillars” of the EU structure. In the case of the Mediterranean Partner Countries (MPCs), the Barcelona Process is the reference for the implementation of the Action Plans that will develop the Strategic Partnership, complemented with the actions executed under the Association Agreements with each partner country. Research and Innovation is one of the priorities of the ENP, and it will be implemented by means of the opening of the European Research Area (ERA) to MPC and by supporting the capacity building activities needed to guarantee a successful integration of the S&T community of the MPCs within the ERA.

The MoCo is one of the Monitoring Instruments of the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership. In turn, MoCo acts as Steering Committee of MIRA Project. In the course of its activity it has identified the main issues related to the hurdles for participation of the MPC in the FP. The 9th Meeting held in Cairo proposed an action plan that has been successfully developed in the last four years in some specific projects: EUROMEDANET, ASBIMED, MED7, ESTIME, ERAMED, etc. Some of the most visible results have been: the establishment of the Information Points on the FP in most of the MPC, the campaigns of awareness among the stakeholder of the MPC, the identification of the common EU-MPC priorities for research, the identification of the on-going and past bilateral scientific and technical cooperation programmes, the description of the RTD system in the MPC.

Moreover, there is a growing interest in the MPC to participate in the FP priorities other than INCO-Med, which has been up to present the most used instrument for MPCs participation to the FP. However, in order to guarantee such a participation, the MPCs should develop the administrative capability, the procedural knowledge and a strong financial capacity in order to guarantee a successful leadership or, at least, to be able to compete successfully in the scientific market against strong European research institutions. A very significant result of the research projects just mentioned under FP6, that were suggested by the 9th MoCo Meeting held in Cairo, is that some MPC research teams have gained a high competitive status and are able to formulate projects and to create ad-hoc research networks. What seem to be missing are an institutional capability and an institutional learning that would be necessary to rely upon in order to be able to compete in equal terms to their European partner/competitor teams in the construction and/or execution of an FP project. Various reasons explain this unbalanced situation that range from administrative failures to management unpreparedness. Some of these reasons have to do with the requirements in order to handle the administrative procedures of European projects; others pertain to differences in administrative and legal procedures on both sides of the Mediterranean. But, whatever the difference might be, the main aspect is that research needs a strong institutional basis, active scientific communities, and a strong social acceptance for research.

The Call for proposal for INCO-Net activities addresses the following objectives:

• Promote, organise and contribute to the participation of third countries in the activities of FP7.
• Promote regional integration and will lead to the identification and the prioritisation of common research areas of mutual interest and benefit.
• Facilitate the uptake and use of common identified research areas and the monitoring of performance and impacts of international S&T cooperation across the Specific Programmes of FP7.

The present CA aims at tackling these objectives by creating a dialogue platform using the state of the art of the ICT technologies, which will enable the discussion between relevant stakeholders from both sides of the Mediterranean to improve the S&T cooperation by, among other means, connecting and facilitating the interaction between the dispersed S&T cooperation initiatives already existing supported by the Member States, the European Commission and other political bodies. It will also address training activities to improve the quality of the participation and management of the partners of FP7 from the MPC. Is will create discussion platforms and meeting to monitor and discuss the content of the Thematic priorities of FP7 in term of the common interest of the EU and MPC and it will also create an Observatory of the EU-MPC S&T cooperation, which will agree indicators for the monitoring of RTD cooperation activities. It will also create a network of research institutions from both sides of the Mediterranean, to support strategic collaboration and provide a reference element for the development of the Euro-Mediterranean Innovation Space. All these activities are aimed at providing a strong institutional basis.

Its main objective is thus to create a coordination instrument between activities of different EU and MPC institutions that would contribute to the implementation of the European Neighbourhood Policy. In doing so, it is expected that this instrument would permit to gradually enhance the EU-MPCs cooperation and thus follow the MoCo recommendations to increase and improve the participation of the MPC stakeholders in the 7th FP. The realisation of this objective is based on a series of policy tools that will be fed the EU-MPCs cooperation, enrich the existing S&T cooperation policies, support the existing Information Points, promote the participation of research centres and companies from the MPCs in the FP, monitor the development of the participation of the MPCs in the FP7 and identifying the common priorities of research.

Finally, the project will promote the cooperation in research and innovation activities by designing recommendations to the MEDA, Bilateral EU-MPC Agreements Implementation bodies, the 7th FP, as well as other initiatives created in order to support research and innovation. In order to meet its general objective, the MIRA Coordinated Action will have to create a support structure for the Euro-Mediterranean Cooperation in S&T and organize actions to:

• Enhance cooperation and favour the MPCs’ participation to the activities of the 7th FP.
• Create discussion fora between EU and MPC stakeholder at different levels of political and technical concern, to discuss the issues related to the S&T cooperation.
• Support the activity of the Monitoring Committee (MoCo) and identify the common interests and monitor the activities of cooperation.
• Create a large network of partners with different backgrounds, essentially academics and policy makers, and incorporate, whenever possible, companies.
• Promote specific topics for study and discussion, by identifying common interests, knowledge building, and networking of experts from different fields.
• Create specific indicators for S&T in MPCs and promote the creation of an academic task force able to tackle the social study of research.
• Facilitate the participation in FP7 through training of managers, scientist, auditors and other relevant actors.
• Disseminate the relevant information, and help build common knowledge and competences for administrators, regulators, and managers in the Mediterranean countries, but also among RTD performers and users. The creation of an EU-MPC Portal on S&T cooperation is envisaged.
• Promote the use of information and communication technologies as potent tools for communication and management, by building virtual communities of practice, opening several specific forums and diffuse management tools.