New Delhi, Nov 7 At the start of his second official visit to India as the European Commission's top research official, Director-General Jose Manuel Silva Rodriguez stated:

"I am confident that we are embarking upon a new era in science and technology cooperation between the European Union and India. Our S&T Cooperation Agreement is about to be renewed for a further five years; we are about to announce exciting new opportunities for collaborative research by leading European and Indian scientists, based on excellence, mutual benefit and co-investment. With our Indian colleagues from the Department of Science and Technology, we will establish a road map of our strategic S&T cooperation for 2008 and beyond. I am also pleased to say that both the quality and quantity of Indian participants, even in this early stage of the European Union's 7th Research Framework Programme already shows a healthy increase as compared to previous Framework Programmes."

The European Commission's Director-General for Research, Rodriguez was on an official visit to New Delhi . The main purpose of the visit was to Co-Chair, with Secretary, Department of Science and Technology of the Government of India, T. Ramasami, the 4th EU-India Science and Technology (S&T) Cooperation Steering Committee Meeting (SCM), being hosted by the Department of Science and Technology (DST) of the Government of India.

In its meeting of Nov 8 , the SCM intends to finalise the details of the first EU-India Coordinated call for Proposals. This call, which will focus on collaborative research in the field of Computational Materials Science will receive support of about five million euro (Rs. 280 million) from each party. It is hoped to attract the best institutions in India and the EU to work together in this important field.

The SCM will review progress on the renewal of the EU-India S&T Cooperation Agreement. It will also decide on the roadmap of cooperative actions for the coming year and beyond, based on principles of symmetry, reciprocity and mutual benefit.

The potentially significant and mutual benefits of this cooperation were highlighted by the leaders of the EU and of India in the Joint Statement of their Summit in Helsinki last year. The renewal of the EU-India S & T Cooperation Agreement is expected to be one of the key deliverables at the forthcoming EU-India Summit on Nov 30 in New Delhi.

This year also saw a landmark event through the organisation of the India-EU Ministerial Science Conference in New Delhi in February. This was the first time that EU Science Ministers met outside of the EU. As well as the Conference's three Co-Chairs - Science Minister of the (then) German Presidency of the EU, Annette Schavan, the EU Research Commissioner (Minister), Janez Potocnik, and Indian Science Minister Kapil Sibal, most EU Member states were represented either by their science minister or by their senior representatives. This unique gathering demonstrated the strong relations between the Indian and European research community.

India is already an important partner for Europe in its Research Framework Programme (FP). Already more than 100 Indian research institutions have participated in more than 80 research projects funded in FP6 (2002-2006). These projects received more than 250 million euro in funding, the share of the Indian partners being more than 11 million euros. Indian organisations have also been active in FP7, which started on Jan 1, 2007, with more than 400 research institutions responding to the first set of Calls for Proposals. The evaluation of these calls and contract negotiations for short listed proposals are underway and the results will be known very soon.

The growing S&T cooperation between the EU, including its Member States, and India is particularly significant for the world of science. Both recognise the key role of science and technology in striving to become advanced knowledge-based economies, in supporting their social and economic development and in addressing together global challenges in health, environment, agriculture and energy.