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History of EU-Egypt Cooperation on Science and Technology
Scientific cooperation with Egypt started 20 years ago in the frame of a
Community’s programme promoting Research for Development in three key
areas: agriculture, environment and health. This cooperation gained
visibility with the AVICENNE programme which addressed regional
Mediterranean scientific priorities and promoted sustainable
partnerships. Since then, a constantly increasing number of research
projects involved Egypt’s research institutions and stakeholders in the
Union’s Framework Programme activities for Research and Technology
Development
http://cordis.europa.eu/en/sitemap.htm#eu-research . These projects
for the most part apply to limited water resources integrated
management, cultural heritage restoration and preservation, public
health systems, environmental protection and risk management, food
security, renewable energy or agricultural production systems.
An Agreement for Scientific and Technological Cooperation between
the European Union and Egypt has been signed ON 21st of June 2005. This
agreement is considered the first of its kind between Egypt and the
European Union in the field of science and technology. According to it,
a joint committee has been established for cooperation between the two
parties, whose functions include ensuring, evaluating and reviewing the
implementation of the agreemen, identifying cooperation sectors and
regularly discussing the future orientations and priorities of research
policies. On this basis a common Action Plan of activities 2006/2007 has
been adopted by both parties after the first EU-Egypt Joint Committee
meeting held in Brussels in June 2006.
The
Action plan
focused mainly at preparing the participation of Egypt in the 7th
Framework Programme (FP7) and maximising synergies between various EC
instruments for S&T cooperation (i.e. EC bilateral programme to support
Research and Innovation in Egypt ). The Action Plan defines ten priority
areas for S&T collaboration within the one year such as Health; Food,
Agriculture, and Biotechnology; Information and Communication
Technologies; Nanosciences, Nanotechnologies, Materials, and Production
Technologies; Energy; environment; transport; socio-economic Sciences
and the Humanities, security, and space. Examples of EU and Egypt
interventions in the specific areas defined are: dissemination and
information actions to ensure active participation of Egyptian
researchers in the EU published calls, the establishment of a national
website and link to the EU mobility portal (fellowships opportunities),
organisation of thematic workshops in Egypt, etc.
In the 6th Framework Programme for RTD (2002-2006)
http://cordis.europa.eu/fp6/whatisfp6.htm
, there is at least 34 contracts signed with 44 participants from Egypt,
receiving a global Community funding over 3.7 million Euro.
The INCO programme –specific measures for international cooperation
http://cordis.europa.eu/inco/fp6/inco_en.html - receives the higher
number of contracts and participants so far (24 contracts and 34
participants).
Despite the history of participation in FPs, there is still a great
margin for improvement both in terms of participation of Egyptian
partners in EU RTD funded collaborative projects and in particular in
fellowships– Marie Curie actions-
http://cordis.europa.eu/research_openings/fellowships.htm
–applications. To date there are no contracts signed with Egyptian
participation in the following thematic areas: Life Sciences, genomics
and biotechnology for health, aeronautics and space, horizontal
activities involving SMEs, human resources and mobility, science and
society. Although calls for proposals are mostly closed under the
current FP6, the new 7th Framework Programme for RTD ( 2007- 2013) under
preparation will continue to offer a wide range of opportunities for
Egyptian participation in RTD projects and fellowships. The first calls
for proposals under the FP7 are expected to be published by the end of
2006-beginning 2007. In addition, innovation and SMEs related activities
will be supported under a complementary programme called Competitiveness
and Innovation Programme (CIP).
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