Europe’s views EU/MS – China

Joint Strategic Agenda on Research and Innovation

1.    Policy background and rationale

China became recently the second major scientific actor worldwide considering bibliometrics and will overtake US by 2020 with the current progress. The rate for research budget in Chinese GDP increased from 0.57 % GDP in 1995 to 1.7 % in 2010. China is undergoing a tremendous transformation and industrialisation, with vast shifts in labour composition and sectoral dislocation. The transformation is to a large extent driven by S&T investments, and China will surpass Europe in gross investments in R&D with a year or two. China represents a vastly growing market for European industry, with the associated need to gear R&D towards the driving factors of this market. China’s industrialisation has huge consequences for the environment, with significant degradation of key resources, pollution, and greenhouse gas emissions. China is changing also in its demography and public health situation, with an ageing population and increasing life style and health problems such as diabetes or cancer.

Moreover, China and Europe are important strategic partners in the field of research and innovation. Many European countries started early with cooperation schemes, the earliest ones already in the 1960s. These state to state agreements were then mostly cultural exchange programmes. Today this has grown into a European-wide pattern of S&T cooperation amounting to more than 90 programmes. Agreements are signed at the level of the Chinese Government (as part of general diplomacy) or, with national research institutions (CAS[1], CASS[2]) and research funding bodies (NSCF[3]) as well as with the best universities. In recent years many bilateral agreements covering science and technology have been signed or renewed by several Member States and the EU with China.  The EU through the Framework Programme is engaging in cooperation with China as part of the general opening of the FP, and China is today the third largest participating 3^rd country. However, the Framework Programme is funding a big share of the Chinese participation. Cooperation takes place through a mix of mechanisms, traditionally through mobility and programme cooperation, but also more recently through institutional cooperation like joint research centres.

Since December 2008 the European Commission and the Member States formed a partnership to better coordinate their international science and technology policies and programmes. The new partnership is coordinated by the Strategic Forum for International Science and Technology Cooperation (SFIC), formed by high level representatives from the EU Member States and from the Commission.[4] The SFIC contributes to joint the efforts so that EU/MS act as one towards third countries, contributing to a common international scientific cooperation strategy, so as to get more leverage effect than the sum of individual Member States and EU forces,  and to strengthen the perception of Europe as an attractive place for researcher's world wide.

Against this background and along the lines of its Work Programme 2009/10 (see doc. CREST-SFIC 1356/09) SFIC identified China as a relevant strategic partner country on which the Forum wants to focus on - besides its other “pilot initiatives” with the objective to develop balanced and more coordinated S&T collaborations with China based on mutual interest and mutual benefit. In its meeting on 28 April 2010, SFIC endorsed the development of a broader base for a strategic approach towards cooperation with China and to work towards a more coherent EU/MS strategy vis-à-vis and with China.

The SFIC organised workshops. The first one took place in May 2011 focussing on key characteristics of the S&T development in China and possible thematic priorities (“Approaching China: towards a more coherent EU/Member States China strategy”) to improve knowledge of the EU/Member States/Associated Countries on STI with China, based on an analysis of strengths and weaknesses, and exchange of information about policies, strategies and activities (including best practices and lessons learnt) of the EU and the Member States towards cooperation with China, to achieve a joint understanding and common knowledge base on how to approach cooperation in science and technology with China, to identify policy priorities for cooperating jointly vis-à-vis China, to agree on the next steps to develop a coherent approach vis-à-vis China. The second workshop in December 2011 focussed on framework conditions for cooperation with China (“Improving framework conditions for successful cooperation with China”). A roadmap was developed as a first step towards the present strategic agenda. The SFIC approved in April 2012 recommendations for thematic priorities (see below).

Moreover, the EU and the MS consider mobility as a key element in EU/MS-China STI cooperation. Therefore, the Delegation of the EU to China organised on 7 December 2011 in Beijing a workshop on long term mobility of European researchers to China and the SFIC organised in collaboration with the Steering Group on Human Resources and Mobility (SGHRM) a workshop on EU/MS-BRIC countries researcher’s mobility on 12 June 2012 in Brussels.

The Europe-China Strategic Agenda on research and innovation could be endorsed at the highest political level, by a China-EU/Member States Ministerial meeting.

Furthermore it will be necessary to put in place adequate mechanisms for reviewing priorities, increasing coherence, promoting synergies, agreeing joint or coordinated actions, and monitoring progress. It is therefore proposed to organise periodically joint Senior Official Meetings (SOM) involving China, the EU and Member States, taking place alternately in China and in Europe, responsible for overseeing the progress of implementation and agree on future actions.