Enhancing the bilateral S&T Partnership with the Russian Federation (BILAT-RUS)

The BILAT-RUS project aimed at enhancing the bilateral S&T partnership between the Russian Federation and the EU Member States, Candidate Countries and other Associated Countries.

Background

The project aimed at contributing to the sustainable implementation of the Common Space on Research, Education and Culture between the EU and Russia and at further strengthening the participation of Russia in Community programmes – most prominently the 7th Framework Programme for Research and Technological Development (FP7).

Objectives

The major objectives of BILAT-RUS were:

to facilitate coherent information dissemination and awareness raising;
to contribute to the optimisation of the framework and the instruments for enhanced future EU-Russian cooperation across all S&T themes;
to create a knowledge base for emerging horizontal issues of sustainable cooperation;
to meet the short and medium term needs of existing and upcoming joint thematic EU-Russian Working Groups on S&T cooperation.

Activities

The project concept of BILAT-RUS built on the following main pillars:

setting up a dialogue and collaborating with the major stakeholders in Russia and the EU, responsible for setting the frame for S&T cooperation (Russia: Ministry of Education and Science, Federal Agency for Science and Innovations, FP7 National Contact Points (NCPs) 5; EU: Member State Ministries and NCPs, Commission Services; EU-Russia Policy Dialogue Platform to be set-up through the Inco-Net EECA);
building on and complementing previous, ongoing and future coordination and support activities aiming at enhancing the cooperation between the EU and the Russian Federation;
making optimum use of synergies with ongoing activities (Inco-Net EECA, SCOPE-EAST, etc.);
assuring coherence and consistency across the priority fields of cooperation;
adding particular value through addressing the optimisation of the framework for cooperation and horizontal issues;
increasing concrete joint S&T activities on project level.

Kick-off meeting BILAT-RUS on 25 September 2008 in Brussels. You can find more detailed information on the project website.

Participants

Germany (Coordinator):
International Bureau of the Federal Ministry of Education and Research
at the Project Management Agency c/o German Aerospace Center (DLR)

Russia:
State University Higher School of Economics (HSE)
Russian Research Centre ‘Kurchatov Institute (KIAE)
State Technological University ‘Moscow Institute of Steel and Alloys’ (MISIS)
Centre for Study of International S&T and Educational Programmes (ICISTE)

France:
National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) (Centre National de la Recherche
Scientifique)

Austria:
Austrian Research Promotion Agency (Österreichische Forschungsförderungsgesellschaft) (FFG)
Centre for Social Innovation (Zentrum für Soziale Innovation) (ZSI)
Zenit Centre for Innovation and Technology in NRW (Zentrum für Innovation und
Technik in NRW)