On 9 and 10 December, the First Bi-Regional Meeting for EU-LAC (European Union, Latin America and the Caribbean Summit) and EULARINET (European Union-Latin American Research and Innovation NETworks) Policy Dialogue was held at premises of the Mexican Ministry of Foreign Affairs. This event was opened by the Foreign Ministry’s Director General of Technical and Scientific Cooperation, Jose Octavio Tripp.
The meeting was attended by representatives of science and technology agencies of the European Union Member Countries, and from countries from Latin America and the Caribbean, authorities from the European Commission’s Directorate General for Research and from the Mexican Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
CONICYT WAS REPRESENTED by Maria Teresa Ramirez, Director of the Department of International Relations as the Delegate of the S&T area in Chile for the preparation of the next EU-LAC Summit, and Astrid Walterman, Coordinator of the European Union Programme, as the Alternate Delegate and member of the EULARINET project.
The 6th EU-LAC Summit of Heads of State from the European Union, Latin America and the Caribbean held on 18 May in Spain, established in its Action Plan for 2010-2011 the development and implementation of an EU-LAC Joint Initiative for Research and Innovation, with the purpose of combining, complementarily and with synergy, instruments at a national, regional and bi-regional level.
“This first bi-regional meeting had the purpose of analysing such Action Plan and the development of ideas for the Work Programme in this joint initiative”, explains Maria Teresa Ramirez, Director of CONICYT’s Department of International Relations.
The event was also attended by representatives of the countries that presided and co-presided the 6th Summit (Spain and Argentina) and the countries currently holding presidency and co-presidency for the 7th Summit (Belgium and Chile, the latter represented by Juan Angulo, from the Chilean Embassy in Brussels; Maria Teresa Ramirez; and Astrid Walterman), and representatives of the European Commission.
All of the above agreed on a procedure to approve the Road Map of the EU-LAC Joint Initiative for Research and Innovation, that contains a series of actions that will be ratified by High Officers during the next meeting of S&T representatives of the European Union Member States and Latin America and the Caribbean, to be held in the first semester of 2011.
What Is EULARINET?
It is a 4-year project that aims to strengthen bi-regional dialogue in Science and Technology between Member States of the European Union (Austria, France, Finland, Germany, Portugal and Spain), Associate States (Norway) and Latin American States (Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Chile, Mexico, Nicaragua and Uruguay).
EULARINET seeks to establish a coordination platform that gathers the persons who are the main responsible for policies of the EU and LA and programme directors and representatives from research entities, universities and the private sector, renowned researchers and representatives of the civil society.
Likewise, it aims to establish dialogue forums at various levels. These forums are expected to result in the identification of policies and priorities in science and technology, defining specific activities in order to promote, support and stimulate participation of Latin American researchers in the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme and thus strengthening international cooperation in science and technology.
More information at:
http://www.eularinet.eu/site/home/language:spa
http://www.eu2010.es/es/cumbre_ue-alc/historia/