Rationale

The launch of the Seventh Framework Programme for Research (2007-2013) places a renewed emphasis on international cooperation in Science and Technology which is increasingly seen as being at the centre of Community policies.

International Cooperation in the Seventh Framework Programme (FP7) addresses three interdependent objectives:

• supporting European competitiveness through strategic partnerships with third countries (3rd countries other than EU Member States and Associated countries to the Framework Programme) in selected fields of science, and by engaging the best third country scientists to work in and with Europe;
• facilitating contacts with partners in third countries with the aim of providing better access to research carried out elsewhere in the world;
• tackling specific challenges that third countries face or having a global character on the basis of mutual interest and mutual benefit (e.g. contributing towards Millennium Development Goals and addressing global climate change, combating biodiversity loss, water and energy scarcity).

Significant changes and improvements have taken place in the approach to international cooperation from the Sixth Framework Programme (FP6) to FP7, which integrates international research collaboration throughout the Framework Programme by including both geographical and thematic targeting.

In order to maximise impact, international activities take place across all Specific Programmes of FP7 in a complementary and synergistic manner. The Cooperation Programme enables research cooperation between different global research partners in collaboration with European researchers. The Capacities Programme supports a range of activities to support S&T cooperation policies and strengthen research capacity in the European scientific community and other regions of the world. The People Programme meets the need to foster both incoming and outgoing international mobility of researchers. The Ideas Programme supports excellence in frontier research and enables individual top international researchers to participate in Europeled teams.

Within the Capacity Programme main activities of International Cooperation range from the bi-regional coordination of S&T cooperation, including priority setting and the support of the S&T policy dialogue (so-called INCO-NET projects), to the bilateral coordination of S&T policies with those countries that signed (or are in the process of signing) an S&T agreement with the Community (so-called BILAT projects), and finally the coordination of national policies and activities of Member States and Associated States concerning international S&T cooperation (so-called ERA-NET and ERA-NET Plus projects).

INCO-NET projects aim to establish coordination platforms, which:

• bring together relevant policy makers, researchers, the private sector and other stakeholders of the EU and of third countries that belong to the targeted region in order to identify S&T priorities and support the definition of S&T cooperation orientations;
• implement awareness and dissemination activities dedicated to the strengthening of the participation of the targeted countries/ regions to the Framework Programme, including the support for information points in third countries;
• carry out strategic analysis of S&T trends and mapping of research capacities in the targeted region, including their links with corresponding EU research counterparts;
• systematically monitor and review cooperation activities in order to provide feedback and updating of S&T policies and priorities.
  

(Original text extracted from Ms. Mary Minch, Director of International Cooperation - Directorate General for Research-EU Commission).

Further information available in: http://ec.europa.eu/research/iscp/pdf/978-92-79-08080-7_en.pdf