EU and Japan reach research accord

Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe, left, with European Commission president Manuel Barroso.

The paper highlights the low participation by Japanese and EU researchers in the other’s research programmes and calls for Europe–Japan cooperation in research and development “to grow in vigour and stature, which in turn would give their relationship a new dimension”.

Both sides also underlined their dissatisfaction with current levels of researcher exchange. Traditionally, far more Japanese researchers have spent time in Europe than European researchers in Japan. The European Commission hopes that a new staff exchange scheme, to be launched through Framework Programme 7 in 2008, will balance this out.

For European researchers already in Japan, the extension of the ERA-Link scheme is set to provide a link back to Europe. ERA-Link has the aim of networking European researchers abroad. It was launched in the US in 2006, and Japan is next in line.

The importance of interchange

Delegates at the summit also noted the importance of interchange between the private sector and academia and the paper commits both parties to further encouraging cooperation.

The paper also sets out specific initiatives for the life sciences, information and communication technologies (ICT), nanotechnology and energy/climate change. In ICT, for example, the EU and Japan agreed to cooperate in areas such as the regulatory framework in the ICT sector, a more secure environment for ICT use, using ICT to support public policy, joint research activities and 4G mobile communication systems

The summit also agreed a plan for improving the protection of intellectual property rights by furthering cooperation on protection and enforcement in third countries, providing support for small and medium-sized enterprises operating in third countries, improving patent prosecution at global level, and securing a predictable and stable international patent system.

The summit was chaired by German Chancellor Angela Merkel, in her current capacity as President of the European Council, European Commission President José Manuel Barroso and Prime Minister of Japan Shinzo Abe.