VI EUROPEAN UNION – LATIN AMERICA AND CARIBBEAN SUMMIT

III. PROMOTING INNOVATION AND TECHNOLOGY ON A BI-REGIONAL SCALE FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT AND SOCIAL INCLUSION.

39. Aware of the key role played by sci­ence, tech­nol­o­gy and inno­va­tion for achiev­ing sus­tain­able devel­op­ment and social inclu­sion, through the social appro­pri­a­tion of knowl­edge, as well as mutu­al ben­e­fits through coop­er­a­tion in capac­i­ty build­ing, research pro­grammes, and tech­nol­o­gy trans­fer activ­i­ties, through inno­va­tion strength­en­ing the­mat­ic net­works and at increas­ing com­pet­i­tive­ness, at favour­ing sci­ence and tech­nol­o­gy inde­pen­dence and at pro­mot­ing greater uptake of sci­ence and tech­nol­o­gy in Latin Amer­i­ca, the Caribbean and in the EU, we agree to give pri­or­i­ty to bi-region­al and tri­an­gu­lar coop­er­a­tion as well as to activ­i­ties in these fields, espe­cial­ly to enable access to coop­er­a­tion oppor­tu­ni­ties to coun­tries with low or no par­tic­i­pa­tion in Euro­pean Pro­grammes.

40. We also decide to strength­en the sci­ence, tech­nol­o­gy and inno­va­tion dia­logue at min­is­te­r­i­al and EU-LAC S&T Senior Offi­cials lev­els in order to ensure updat­ing and mon­i­tor­ing of pri­or­i­ties and joint instru­ments, tak­ing into account the inter­est and dif­fer­ences between and with­in each region in order to strength­en the enabling envi­ron­ment for social and tech­no­log­i­cal inno­va­tion across our soci­eties.

41. Ful­ly com­mit­ted with pri­or­i­ties and deci­sion tak­en in ear­li­er EU-LAC Sum­mits to achieve a “EU-LAC Knowl­edge Area”, we agree on the devel­op­ment and imple­men­ta­tion of the EU-LAC Joint Ini­tia­tive for Research and Inno­va­tion (the ‘Ini­tia­tive’) adopt­ed at the EU-LAC Min­is­te­r­i­al Forum on Sci­ence and Tech­nol­o­gy held in Madrid on 14 May 2010. The Ini­tia­tive is based on a set of pre-exis­tent and new actions com­bin­ing dif­fer­ent types of instru­ments at nation­al, region­al and bi-region­al lev­els, as appro­pri­ate, in a com­ple­men­tary and syn­er­gis­tic man­ner in pur­suit of the objec­tives of the Ini­tia­tive. The Ini­tia­tive frames Sci­ence and Tech­nol­o­gy coop­er­a­tion in close coor­di­na­tion with high­er edu­ca­tion and inno­va­tion actions. This is expect­ed to cre­ate con­di­tions for strength­en­ing the inter­face between research and inno­va­tion and to facil­i­tate tech­nol­o­gy trans­fer and adap­ta­tion in for­mats acces­si­ble to micro and SMEs, includ­ing through knowl­edge and inno­va­tion cen­tres net­work, par­tic­i­pa­tion in the Euro­pean Research Frame­work Pro­gramme, pro­gres­sive open­ing of nation­al research pro­grammes, inter­con­nec­tiv­i­ty between research infra­struc­tures and pro­mot­ing coop­er­a­tion in capac­i­ty build­ing human and insti­tu­tion­al.

42. In order to pur­sue these objec­tives, the above men­tioned Joint Action Plan as regards research, tech­nol­o­gy and inno­va­tion com­pris­es imple­men­ta­tion of the Joint Ini­tia­tive for Research and Inno­va­tion as well as oth­er bi-region­al activ­i­ties regard­ing Research and Devel­op­ment and inno­va­tion.

43. We very much wel­come that the VII LAC-EU Sum­mit will be held in Chile in 2012 and we accept with plea­sure the invi­ta­tion to par­tic­i­pate.

44. We thank Spain and the city of Madrid for host­ing the VI EU-LAC Sum­mit.

***

Annex: EU-LAC Joint Action Plan.

Source:
Coun­cil of the Euro­pean Union