18
Figure 2 – Distribution by occurrence of aggregatedsemantic or titles in national programmes
Figure 3 - Distribution by % of aggregated semantic or titles in national programmes of EU PRIMA members
0
2
4
6
8
Agriculture and food
Environment,
resources, climate
Health
ICT
Energy
Biotechnology
Social and societies
Cultural
heritage
Transport
Space
Engineering
Security
Sustainable
development
Others
Agriculture and
food
14%
Environment,
resources,
climate
14%
Health
13%
ICT
7%
Energy
9%
Biotechnology
3%
Social and
society
8%
Cultural
heritage
4%
Transport
9%
Space
4%
Engineering
4%
Security
4%
Sustainable
development
4%
Others
2%
19
In conclusion, the data collected show that EU Member States have in place
a good number of
activities targeting themes of common interest ensuring possible programmes alignment in main
challenges like environment, agriculture, natural scienceand that they are all aware of the
potential benefits deriving from a stronger international collaboration. Topics such as
agriculture/food, environment, energy, health are in most cases high positioned in the agenda of
national programmes considered.
A stronger integration and long-term collaboration among EU Member States would help facing
the main threats and weaknesses of national programmes, and would in particular guarantee a
more stable allocation of funds and larger regional impact. Any joint initiative to be undertaken in
the future should also be able to foster innovation and facilitate the participation of the private
sector.
1.2.2 Bilateral cooperation EU Member States – Mediterranean
Partner
Countries
In addition to international cooperation activities carried out within national research programmes
(e.g. through targeted call openings), which have been considered in the previous paragraph,
bilateral activities implemented in the frame of S&T agreements should also be taken into account
Good Practices
AllEnvi : Federating the French environmental research sector
In a context of global change, increased awareness of the limited nature
of the available resources,
societies need to address environmental challenges on a global scale. To this aim, AllEnvi is
federating and steering French environmental research. AllEnvi was established on the initiative of
its twelve founding members, and is one of five French thematic research « Alliances ».
Allenvi pools
the expertise of research organizations, universities and colleges in the field of environmental
science, with a community of almost 20000 scientists. . Allenvi works in four directions: Steering and
planning research; Coordinating innovation and technology transfer and development ; Building
networks of research infrastructures and Engaging with the European and international
research area
Italy National Strategy for Research and Innovation in Food, Agriculture and Forestry
In April 2015 the Italian Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Forestry has approved a Strategy for the
period 2014-2020 aimed at the identification of research and innovation projects carried out by the
public or private sector related to the following macro-objectives:
sustainable agricultural production,
climate change, food chain, food quality & safety, sustainable use of resources for industrial purposes,
development and re-organization of the knowledge system. This Strategy has been drafted by the
Ministry following an extensive consultation on research and innovation needs involving national and
local institutions as well as enterprises and academia.
20
in order to have a clear view on the potential for long-term joint programming in the Mediterranean
region. In fact, bilateral S&T agreements reflect the political willingness of countries engaged in
carrying out join activities on given thematic areas. With reference to bilateral cooperation between
single EU Member States and non-EU Mediterranean countries, as highlighted hereafter,
agriculture, environment and health are targeted by several activities, particularly – for some
countries – agricultural water, food security, climate and marine environment. Bilateral cooperation
activities are supported in most countries by S&T Bilateral Cooperation Agreements.
In spite of the
higher regional impact, only few multilateral agreements are in force between an EU country and
MPCs (a good practice is provided in the box below).
Building on a study conducted by MedSpring in the early preparatory phase of PRIMA and presented
at the Stakeholders meeting in Beirut in 2014, the major bilateral agreements between EU Member
States and between a MS and a MPC of PRIMA can be synthesized in Table 2:
Table 2: Most covered themes by bilateral S&T agreements in some countries (i.e.: France, Italy, Jordan, Lebanon,
Spain, Germany, Morocco, Turkey)
Table 2 shows that for themes of relevance for PRIMA (environment, water, agriculture) we can
already appreciate an
important number of cooperation actions, supported by up to 40lon-term
S&T bilateral agreements involving France, Italy, Jordan, Lebanon, Spain, Germany, Morocco,
Turkey. France is the country showing a large number of bilateral agreements (more than 20 S&T
agreements, Joint Lab, permanent networks) with almost all PRIMA MS/AC and MPCs, with the
latters having agreements in different areas with emphasis on Health, Energy, Agriculture and Social
Sciences. The number of bilateral agreements, although relevant in the whole picture, might not
Research topic
(colour intensity is proportional to the n. of agreements
mentioning the topic)
Nanotechnology
New Materials
Aerospace
Climate
Civil
Security
Transports
Marine science
Social Science
Food
Biotechnology
Energy
Environment
Natural
resources
ICT
Agriculture
Health
0-5
agreements
5-10 agreements
10-25 agreements