EU-Korea STI Cooperation
Cooperation between the EU and Korea on research and innovation is governed by the Agreement for Scientific and Technological Cooperation which came into force in 2007. In fusion research, Euratom and Korea are parties to the ITER International Agreement and have a bilateral cooperation agreement on fusion energy research.
Every two years, a Joint Science & Technology Cooperation Committee (JSTCC) takes place to review current joint activities and to seek future cooperative areas. At the latest JSTCC in Brussels, Belgium in September 2017, both the EU and Korea emphasised the need to deepen, scale up and open opportunities for cooperation in selected technological areas such as ICT (5G, IoT, AI, and Cloud), nanosafety, nanoelectronics, health/bio, energy, satellite navigation, transport including automated vehicles, climate, polar research, disaster-resilience etc. Besides the joint research in specific fields, researchers' mobility through the European Research Council (ERC) programme and Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) were also encouraged.
To boost EU-Korea cooperation there are plenty of supporting channels such as a National Contact Point (NCP) system, online website (www.haneurope.com), a researchers' mobility programme called EURAXESS and joint conferences like the EU-Korea Research and Innovation Day on 12 September, 2018 in Seoul. So far, 53 Korean entities participate in 41 Horizon 2020 projects. The Korean success rate in proposals is nearly twice the average for the programme: 20% of those who submit end up in a selected project. The Calls for Proposals in the last half of the programme (2018-2020) include 25 topics where cooperation with Korean R&I entities is explicitly encouraged, and all other topics are open for Korean participation.
List of upcoming calls for proposals targeting Korea in Horizon 2020 (WP 2018-2020)
Topic Code | Topic Title | Targeted countries | Deadline | Indicative budget 2018 (m€) | Indicative budget 2019 (m€) |
Unconventional Nanoelectronics | JP, KR, TW, US | 28/03/2019 | 0 | 30 | |
Safe by design, from science to regulation: metrics and main sectors | US, KR, BR, CA, AU, CN, JP, ZA | 22/01/ 2019 | 0 | 24 | |
Awareness Raising and capacity building | All | 5/03/ 2019 | 0 | 2 | |
International Cooperation Copernicus – Designing EO downstream applications with international partners | Partners with Copernicus cooperation arrangement | 12/03/ 2019 | 0 | 5 | |
Space weather | All | 12/03/ 2019 | 0 | 9 | |
Development of next generation biofuel and alternative renewable fuel technologies from CO2 and renewable energy (Power and Energy to Fuels) | Mission Innovation countries | To be decided | To be decided | To be decided | |
Social Sciences and Humanities (SSH) aspects of the Clean- Energy Transition | Mission Innovation countries | 2 steps: 6/9/2018; 27/8/2019 | 10 | 10 | |
Conversion of captured CO2 | Mission Innovation countries | 06/09/ 2018 | 12 | 0 | |
Low carbon industrial production using CCUS | Mission Innovation countries | 27/08/ 2019 | 0 | 33 | |
Human centred design for the new driver role in highly automated vehicles | US, JP, KR, SG, AU | 24/04/ 2019 | 0 | 8 | |
Developing and testing shared, connected and cooperative automated vehicle fleets in urban areas for the mobility of all | US, JP, KR, SG, AU | 24/04/ 2019 | 0 | 30 | |
Logistics solutions that deal with requirements of the 'on demand economy' and for shared-connected and low-emission logistics operations | All | 2 steps: 16/01/ 2019 12/09/ 2019 | 0 | 10 | |
Addressing knowledge gaps in climate science, in support of IPCC reports | All | 2 steps: 27/02/ 2018 04/09/ 2018 | 60 | 0 | |
The changing cryosphere: uncertainties, risks and opportunities | US, CA, CN, JP, RU, KR, NZ, IN, SG | 19/02/2019 | 0 | 39 | |
Technologies for first responders | JP, KR | 2 steps: 23/8/ 2018; 22/8/ 2019 | 28 | 21 |