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RSS SubscribeMonday 9th February 2009
The BIO CIRCLE network
by Jean-François Desvignes-Hicks
Biocircle newsletters
- Issues #2: November 2009 (www.biocircle-project.eu/dnn4/nletupload/Newsletter2_FINAL.pdf)
- Issues #1: April 2009 (www.biocircle-project.eu/dnn4/nletupload/Newsletter1_0904_final.pdf)
Project overview
The BIO CIRCLE project brings together research communities from all over the world, with the aim to stimulate international cooperation under the 7th Framework Programme (FP7) in the theme “Food, Agriculture and Fisheries and Biotechnology”, also referred to as the “bio-economy” theme. To this end, the network of Third Country BIO-National Contact Points (NCPs) will be further extended and reinforced, building on the previous activities including the Food-N-Co project (www.food-n-co.net) and other supporting actions under FP6.
| regions | partner countries |
|---|---|
| EU Member States | France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands |
| Americas | Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Mexico |
| Mediterranean partner countries | Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia |
| Eastern Europe and Central Asia | Russia, Kazakhstan, Ukraine |
| Africa | Ghana, South Africa |
| Asia-Pacific | Australia, China, India, New Zealand, Thailand |
BIO CIRCLE’s activities have just started at the beginning of 2009 and will last two years. In total, 18 Third Country and 6 European BIO-NCPs covering all regions of the world are working together. The main activities include:
- Strengthening capacity of Third Country BIO-NCPs to assist their researchers,
- Promoting partnerships between European and Third Country researchers (Partner search and 2 Brokerage Events),
- Helping researchers outside Europe to participate in FP7 (Researcher training and Catalogue of research organisations).
In addition, the BIO CIRCLE project will collect topics of mutual interest for Third Countries and the EU. Each partner country will organise a national roundtable, whenever possible in cooperation with relevant FP7 INCONET and BILAT projects. The topics will be presented to the European Commission in the final year of the project.
Australia is a partner country in the project with the participation of the Forum for European-Australian Science and Technology cooperation (FEAST) hosted at The Australian National University (ANU). FEAST will work closely with the Italian Coordinator of the project (Agenzia per la promozione della ricerca europea, APRE) and with the Hungarian partner (Hungarian Science and Technology Foundation, TETALAP) to twin activities and for training. The role of FEAST also includes the NCP for the Cooperation programme in FP7 to support Australian partners engaged in FP7 projects or proposals, particularly in the domains linked to the bio-economy.
From FAFB to KBBE
Food, Agriculture and Fisheries and Biotechnology (FAFB) cover research in the second priority of FP7 in the Cooperation programme. The long term objective of the research is to build the European Knowledge Based Bio-Economy (KBBE). The term “bio-economy” includes all industries and economic sectors that produce, manage and otherwise exploit biological resources (e.g. agriculture, food, forestry, fisheries and other bio-based industries). The implementation of the KBBE addresses the following needs:
- growing demand for safer, healthier, higher quality food;
- sustainable use and production of renewable bio-resources;
- increasing risk of epizootic and zoonotic diseases and food related disorders;
- sustainability and security of agricultural, aquaculture and fisheries production;
- increasing demand for high quality food, taking into account animal welfare and rural and coastal contexts and response to specific dietary needs of consumers.
Collaboration with Australia in the KBBE theme is very rich. Indeed,with 9 projects, the theme ranks first in the number of FP7 selected projects with Australian partners (data from 2007 and first 2008 calls). Since 2007, the Australian Department of Innovation, Industry, Science and Research (DIISR), has established collaborations in the bio-economy theme with Europe as a priority for the ISL competitive grant.
