Since 1994, the European Union (EU) has signed international agreements for scientific and technological cooperation with many non-EU countries, such as Algeria, Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, the People’s Republic of China, Egypt, India, Israel, Japan, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Rep. Korea, Mexico, Morocco, New Zealand, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Tunisia, Turkey, Ukraine, the United Kingdom and the United States.
Association with the EU's framework programs can represent a significant contribution to the partner country's research volume and help it develop linkages with international networks of excellence.
Twelve years after EFTA was founded in 1960, it counted nine member states: Austria, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Portugal, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom.
Switzerland, on the other hand, must negotiate a bilateral cooperation agreement with the EU for each framework programme, as well as in areas such as trade in goods and services, and adhere to the four cornerstones of the single market.
[5] The European Economic Area (EEA) agreement affords Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway the status of fully associated partners in EU research programmes.
Iceland and Norway take full advantage of this opportunity; they were among the most successful countries per capita for the obtention of competitive research grants from the Seventh Framework Programme over 2007–2013.
In relation to climate change, for instance, one of the programme's priority themes, a joint project enabled Portugal to draw on the Icelandic experience to tap its geothermal potential in the Azores.
Liechtenstein, on the other hand, has decided to refrain from an association with Horizon 2020, in light of the small number of scientists from this country and its resultant low participation level in the two former programmes.
[5] Switzerland was unable to sign the European Economic Area treaty, even though it had participated actively in drawing it up, owing to a negative vote in a Swiss referendum in November 1992.
These include the launch of joint projects such as Interact (Arctic research), Supra (next-generation pilot simulators), Diabimmune (diabetic and auto-immune illness prophylactics) and Hopsa/Apos (efficient supercomputing for science and industry).
It comprises 12 members: Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Georgia, Greece, Moldova, Romania, the Russian Federation, Serbia, Turkey and Ukraine.
The aim of the biomedical Instruct is to provide pan-European users with access to state-of-the-art equipment, technologies and personnel in cellular structural biology, to enable Europe to maintain a competitive edge in this vital research area.
[12] Israel is also one of the nodes of Elixir, which orchestrates the collection, quality control and archiving of large amounts of biological data produced by life science experiments in Europe.
[13] IncoNet CA builds on the experience of earlier EU projects which involved other regions, such as Eastern Europe, the South Caucasus and the Western Balkans.
It involves a consortium of partner institutions from Austria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Germany, Hungary, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Poland, Portugal, Tajikistan, Turkey and Uzbekistan.
It sought to achieve policy objectives through the creation of a platform fostering dialogue and coordination among governmental bodies, research institutions, non-governmental organisations and civil society.
Med-Spring involved the following countries: Algeria, Belgium, Cyprus, Egypt, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Malta, Morocco, Palestine, Portugal, Spain, Tunisia and Turkey.
In the Rabat Declaration adopted at this meeting, ministers undertake to facilitate training, technology transfer and scientific mobility by creating a specific visa for researchers.
[16] The ERAfrica initiative (2010–2014) funded by the Seventh Framework Programme has enabled European and African countries to launch joint calls for proposals in three thematic fields: Renewable Energy; Interfacing Challenges; and New Ideas; this has resulted in 17 collaborative research projects being backed by €8.3 million.
Meanwhile, the Network for the Coordination and Advancement of sub-Saharan Africa–EU Science and Technology Cooperation Plus (CAAST-Net Plus, 2013–2016) focuses on food security, climate change and health, with the participation of 26 research organizations across both continents.
By mid-2015, institutions from 16 African countries had reportedly obtained €5 million from Horizon 2020 in the form of 37 individual grants, the majority of which are related to climate change and health research.
During the Seventh Framework Programme, China was the EU's third-largest partner country (after the US and the Russian Federation) for the number of participating organizations (383) and collaborative research projects (274), particularly those focusing on health, environment, transportation, ICTs and the bio-economy.
In addition to facilitating a convergence of views between researchers of different backgrounds, this co-operation has had some positive spillovers to other regions in complex cross-disciplinary areas, one example being the project for Advancing Universal Health Coverage in Asia over 2009–2013).
This annual forum was launched in 2014 within the Southeast Asia–EU Network for Biregional Co-operation project (SEA–EU NET II) funded by the EU's Seventh Framework Programme for Research and Innovation.
[18] The other six partners are: the Association of Commonwealth Universities, the Institut de recherche pour le développement in France, the Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation, a joint international institution of the African, Caribbean and Pacific Group of States and the European Union, the Sociedade Portuguesa de Inovação, United Nations Industrial Development Organization and Leibniz Centre for Tropical Marine Ecology in Germany.
[18] PACE-Net Plus focuses on three societal challenges:[18] A conference held in Suva (Fiji) in 2012 under the umbrella of PACE–Net Plus produced recommendations for a strategic plan for research, innovation and development in the Pacific.
The conference report published in 2013 identified research needs in the Pacific in seven areas: health; agriculture and forestry; fisheries and aquaculture; biodiversity and ecosystem management; freshwater; natural hazards; and energy.
[18] The conference also established the Pacific Islands University Research Network to support knowledge creation and sharing and to prepare succinct recommendations for the development of a regional policy framework for science, technology and innovation.
[19] The sixth summit between the European Union and Latin America and the Caribbean in 2010 identified new pathways for biregional co-operation in the Madrid Declaration, which emphasized partnership in the areas of innovation and technology for sustainable development and social inclusion.
[19] As of 2022, the European Union has signed international agreements for scientific and technical cooperation with the following countries[citation needed]: This article incorporates text from a free content work.