This two day event will bring together the science community, industry and policy-makers to present project deliverables, discuss major recommendations on how to facilitate Africa- Europe STI cooperation and research infrastructure partnership and celebrate the project’s achievements.
One of the most important objectives of Horizon2020 is strengthening international cooperation with third countries. Horizon2020 sets the goal of increasing the Union’s excellence and attractiveness in research to tackle global challenges in collaboration with international partners, which in turn supports the European Union’s external policies and contributes to achieving the UN’s Millennium Development Goals.
The Promoting African-European Research Infrastructure Partnerships (PAERIP) project is an initiative aimed at informing the organisation of policy dialogue and promoting research collaboration between the two continents. Funded under the EU’s FP7 Capacities Programme (INFRA-2010-3.2), the PAERIP project represents an example of an initiative that could result from Horizon2020 and discussions taking part at the ES: GC2 Conference.
The first day of the conference will be dedicated to a high-level opening session with the participation of senior representatives from the European Commission and the African Union Commission, and will include a keynote speech from South Africa’s Minister of Science and Technology, Minister Derek Hanekom. The discussion on the first day will also be focused on the PAERIP analysis and recommendations on:
• Interventions to enhance African and European researchers’ transnational access to African and European researcher infrastructures;
• Opportunities for Africa and Europe to collaborate in developing new large-scale research infrastructures ; and
• The merit of investment from development and economic cooperation instruments in Africa-EU research infrastructure partnerships, due to their socio-economic benefit.
The conference will provide a platform for meeting with key decision-makers to discuss future perspectives for increasing Africa-Europe RI cooperation and exchanging experiences with international experts. This event is expected to confirm the significance of PAERIP as one of the first dedicated support actions for international research infrastructure cooperation with a specific geographic focus and the first FP7 project on RI coordinated from outside Europe.
The conference agenda and the registration form are now available on the PAERIP website (www.paerip.org).
