INCONTACT Workshop in South Africa, Pretoria, 1-2 December, 2008
From INCO-Wiki
The INCONTACT workshop for the Sub-Saharan African countries was held in Centurion (Pretoria), South Africa on 1-2 December 2008.
The objectives of the workshop were as follows:
-Building African regional capacity with regard to FP7 understanding and improving the ability of officially designated FP7 National Information Points (NIPs) in Africa to carry out their responsibilities to promote FP7 participation in their countries;
-Providing a basis for networking between African NIPs in order to promote cooperation and coordination between African countries with regard to promoting African participation in FP7;
-Facilitating contact between African NIPs and EU international cooperation (INCO) National Contact Points (NCPs) INCO NCPs to share experiences and identifying best practice in provision of NCP / NIP services and creating a platform for future cooperation in FP7 and fostering appropriate integration of African NIPs into the FP7NCP networks;
-Raising awareness among participating European FP7 INCO NCPs of the potential for researchers in Africa to participate in FP7 as well as looking into the challenges thereof and Considering and recommending on modalities for African participation in FP7.
Program
The program and the presentations will be published shortly.
Monday 1 December 2008 - Presenting the FP7
08:30 Opening
Welcoming address by Mr Mmboneni Muofhe, Manager : Strategic Partnerships, South African Department of Science and Technology, and Mr Michele Genovese, representative of the European Commission’s Directorate-General Research
09:00 Presentation of the INCONTACT project,INCONTACT Coordinator – Epaminondas Christofilopoulos of HELP-FORWARD
09:15 Overview of the European Union’s Framework Programmes for Research Delivered by the Coordinator of the South African Network of FP7 Contacts, Mr Mmboneni Muofhe, including basic overview of the structure and functioning of the FP7, highlighting the value for third countries to participate and the specific strategic dimension of their engagement
10:30 Refreshments
11:00 Overview of the FP7 Cooperation Programme,Help-Forward – Epaminondas Christofilopoulos
12:30 Lunch
13:30 Overview of the FP7 People Programmes, Presented by French INCO NCP, Clermont Universite – Mr Mathieu Leporini
15:00 Refreshments
15:30 Overview of FP7 Legal and Financial Aspects (part 1, part 2, part 3) Presented by Swedish INCO NCP (Vinnova – Monica Hjertman)
17:00 Closure
19:00 Social networking event hosted by the South African Department of Science and Technology
Tuesday 2 December 2008 - The role of FP7 Contacts
09:00 Overview of the functioning of FP7 NCP and Contact Networks
The Swedish NCP system, presented by the Swedish INCO NCP, Vinnova – Karin Hjorth- Rybbe
The Greek NCP system, presented by the Greek INCO NCP, Help-Forward – Constantine Vaitsas
The Egyptian NCP system, Presented by the Egyptian INCO NCP, MHESR – Yasser Elshayeb
The European NCP system, Presented by the Greek INCO NCP, Help-Forward- Epaminondas Christofilopoulos
11:00 Presentation on partner search by the Greek INCO NCP (Help-Forward- Epaminondas Christofilopoulos)
11:30 Presentation on Wiki Presented by Greek INCO NCP (Help-Forward – Constantine Vaitsas)
12:30 Lunch
13:30 Presentation of FP7 INCO-Net for Sub-Saharan Africa (CAAST-Net) Joseph Odhiambo – Ministry of Higher Education, Science and Technology (Kenya)
13:45 Presentation of opportunities and challenges for African countries in cooperating with Europe Short presentations delivered by designated African FP7 contacts on perspectives pertaining to their countries. Chaired by South African FP7 Contact Coordinator (DST – Mmboneni Muofhe)
15:00 Refreshments
15:30 Discussion on next steps to promote cooperation between European NCPs and African FP7 Contacts Chaired by Greek INCO NCP (Help-Forward – Epaminondas Christofilopoulos)
16:30 Closing remarks Mr Michele Genovese of the European Commission’s Directorate-General Research
Conclusions
The INCONTACT workshop for the Sub-Saharan African countries was held in Centurion (Pretoria), with a considerable representation of African countries. The main problem in this workshop was to identify suitable representatives from each country, as besides South Africa there are no nominated NCPs in the rest Sub-Saharan Africa.
In contradiction, the last workshop proved to be highly successful in terms of networking and real results, as we expect a number of new INCO NCP nominations from African countries in the next months.
The main outcomes and issues raised are the following:
• South Africa is a regional pole and could act as a bridge for EU towards Sub-Saharan African countries. South Africa and Egypt are successful examples for the rest of the African countries and the transfer of their know-how is important.
• There is a strong will for cooperation with EU by the Sub-Saharan countries; however there is serious lack of knowledge on FP7 and the rules of participation.
• There is also skepticism around EU’s objectives and side effects for their countries e.g. brain drainage, protection of African IPR in FP7 projects.
• Marie Curie International Research Staff Exchange Scheme (IRSES): in the 1st call the co-financing rule for ICPC participants was waived helping their participation. South Africa and Egypt are suggesting the Commission to keep the same policy.
• It was also suggested to open REGPOT for the rest of the African countries (now is only open for the Mediterranean countries).
Finally, it was suggested to coordinate CAAST-net and MIRA activities on the identification of the research priorities and to build a stable communication channel between the two projects.
More conclusions of the 2-day workshop can be found on the CAAST-net web site:
- - INCONTACT workshop kicks off
- - Workshop encourages growth in Sub-Saharan Africa FP participation
- - Greece and Sweden lead by example in NCP training and development
