Draft Report of the Expert Group on International STI Cooperation to ...

The current situation seems to reveal at least four main problems that need to be rectified in a
new strategic approach, bearing in mind that international cooperation policy will need to be
formulated to achieve goals <strong>of</strong> science, industry and foreign policy as well as goals related to
global challenges:
a) The key issue <strong>of</strong> competitiveness is not properly addressed. This means that in
practice <strong>the</strong> priorities in international cooperation are too weakly linked to <strong>the</strong>
objective <strong>of</strong> streng<strong>the</strong>ning <strong>the</strong> competitiveness <strong>of</strong> European industry, and innovation
is not sufficiently integrated in <strong>the</strong> priorities. International cooperation remains mostly
a public to public cooperative relationship. The need for a new focus on industry and
innovation is addressed later in this chapter.
b) There is too little focus on <strong>the</strong> needs <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> scientific community and how it can
exploit international cooperation to enhance excellence <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> European system.
Ra<strong>the</strong>r, international cooperation follows an implicit priority <strong>of</strong> extending globally to
as many countries as possible for some (marginal) participation in <strong>the</strong> FP. The
implication is to give more priority to cooperation with countries with STI strengths.
c) The fundamental principle <strong>of</strong> general opening <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> FP seems to forego strategic
orientation. Much <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> FPs resources (funding and DG R&I personnel) is focused on
managing this broad, all-covering interface, which hence also indirectly seems to
reduce <strong>the</strong> opportunities for effective, targeted partnerships with Member States.
d) Too little flexibility in <strong>the</strong> allocation <strong>of</strong> funds for strategic, targeted opportunities
reduces <strong>the</strong> potential impact <strong>of</strong> international cooperation.
Negotiating priorities
The Strategic Forum for International S&T Cooperation (SFIC) represents an EU level
partnership mandated to enhance <strong>the</strong> overall strategic dimension <strong>of</strong> priority setting. Its main
approach has been to select pilot countries as geographical priorities and <strong>the</strong>n developed
cooperative research and innovation agendas. In <strong>the</strong> case <strong>of</strong> India, this started with a more
incidental focus on water related research which was later expanded to comprise a broad
cooperative agenda. In <strong>the</strong> case <strong>of</strong> China, a strategic approach was launched from <strong>the</strong>
beginning, building up a strategic learning process, with <strong>the</strong> intermediary result <strong>of</strong> a set <strong>of</strong>
recommendations for priorities via a vis China that were transmitted to <strong>the</strong> Commission and
<strong>the</strong> Council in line with SFICs role as an advisory body.
The priority setting process can briefly be described as complex negotiation processes:
• The <strong>the</strong>matically based priority setting takes place in <strong>the</strong> context <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> <strong>the</strong>matic
committees in <strong>the</strong> FP7, and expands to include o<strong>the</strong>r services in <strong>the</strong> research “family”
<strong>of</strong> FP7, as well as beyond to DGs or policy areas at EU level that research and
international cooperation are supposed to serve;
• The INCO programme committee is in line with <strong>the</strong> above as negotiating platform.
• SFIC as a strategic forum serves as a base for negotiating among <strong>the</strong> partnership,
including <strong>the</strong> Commission. The priority has been towards geographical selection. An
inherent imperative has been <strong>the</strong> coordination <strong>of</strong> national, bilateral activities vis a vis
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