Very well received workshop on EU-U.S. and International Cooperation at the EU Brokerage Event on KET in Horizon 2020

The overall goal of the  BILAT USA 2.0  workshop on EU-U.S. and International Cooperation was to exchange of knowledge on European and U.S. cutting edge research and innovation capacities on specific topics in Nanotechnology based on the (draft) H2020 work programme 2016-2017.

After opening remarks from Professor Savolainen, Mrs. Clara de la Torre, the director of Key Enabling Technologies (KET) at the European Commission welcomed the session participants. In her speech she emphasized the Commissioner Moedas’s 3 Os: Open innovation, Open science and Opening to the world.

After outlining the major areas of H2020 she focused on the KET 2016-2017work programme and indicated that  manufacturing is on the backbone of the work programme as being the biggest user and demander of the Key Enabling Technologies. She also emphasized the “impact” as one of the major areas in proposal evaluation.

As opening to the world is one of the 3 goals of the H2020, Mrs. de la Torre indicated that international cooperation is not only about funding, but more about exchanging knowledge and experience and tackle the grand challenges of the century together. She also indicated that regulations do not refer to certain territory but rather scientific base on common standards.

She ended her speech by saying that scientists are ambassadors and it is worth to working together.

It was pointed out that lack of (automatic) EU funding for U.S. researchers and some specific legal issuescan be very challenging for the potential U.S. partners. In order to tackle this barrier BILAT USA 2.0 referred to co-funding instruments that some other international partner countries such as China and Russia have been using as example. Also better adjustment of the timing of the calls (at the EU level-H2020 and in the U.S) can also support joint collaboration efforts. Nevertheless participants agreed that coming together help to understand each other. Funding is important though as second step.

At this point representatives of the U.S. and European Nano-Characterisation Laboratory (EU NCL) informed that the organizational support provided by BILAT USA 2.0 that took place in 2014 to bring the European researchers to NCL was very crucial and it resulted in the joint project EUNCL where US NCL became one of the partners.

Please find below the presentations of the workshop.