Steering Committee meeting. Bonn, 7 September Minutes

Transcription

1 on Agricultural Research for Development EFARD Steering Committee meeting Bonn, 7 September 2001 Minutes Participants: See appended list (Annex 1) 1. OPENING BY E. PORCEDDU, EFARD VICE-CHAIRMAN Professor E PORCEDDU first gave the floor to C. BONTE FRIEDHEIM, as representative of the German National Forum, who thanked the German BEAF (Beratungsgruppe Entwicklungsorientierte Agrarforschung /Advisory Service for Development-Oriented Agricultural Research) team for the efficient help to the meeting preparation. In turn, E. PORCEDDU thanked the German National Forum for having prepared and hosted the meeting. He then gave an overview on the main events and developments that occurred since the last EFARD Steering Committee (SC) meeting, later to be presented and discussed in details during the current meeting, and assessed the main objectives to be achieved. 2. APPROVAL OF THE AGENDA The agenda was approved without any modification. 3. APPROVAL OF THE MINUTES OF THE LAST STEERING COMMITTEE MEETING The minutes was endorsed by the EFARD SC. They will be made available on the EFARD Web Server 4. THE ERA-ARD BUILDING PROCESS Presentation: W. VAN VUURE first presented the on going building process of the European Research Area on Agricultural Research for Development (ERA-ARD), giving precisions on the main steps undertaken during the last five months. Activities have been developed along three main directions: Interaction with the European Commission: the EFARD restricted group on ERA-ARD met twice with representatives of the EC (DG Research and DG Development), on April 26 and July 11. The meetings provided updated information about the EC New Framework Programme (NFP), and in particular the international dimension of the ERA. According to this information, Integrated Projects (IP) or Networks of Excellence (NoE) in the field of ARD could be submitted either under three of the seven priorities of the NFP, or under the so called 8 th priority (support to other EC policies). In the latest case, proposals should fit with the priorities of the DGs Development and External Relations; therefore, close interaction with those DGs are also necessary, further to the already well established links with DG Research. Pr L. BIANCO, the EFARD Chairman, sent in June a letter to Mr BUSQUIN, European Commissioner for Research, in which he presented the progress already made in the ERA-ARD building process. He also invited Mr BUSQUIN to take part in the 2 nd EFARD meeting in Rome, and requested information about the Ministerial-level Conference on ERA-ARD Mr BUSQUIN had suggested to organize during the meeting with EFARD on March, /09/01

2 Mr BUSQUIN had replied just before the EFARD SC meeting. Copies of his answer were distributed to participants. The answer is extremely positive: Mr BUSQUIN acknowledged the consultations realized at the EFARD level, encouraging it to pursue its interaction with the European Commission. He also write that the Ministerial Conference will be organized by the EC as soon as possible. Finally, he agreed to attend the 2 nd EFARD meeting. Meanwhile, the Restricted Group had also tried to get a contact with Mr CAUDRON, European Parliament member reporting for the NFP, but so far unsuccessfully. Another attempt should be made as soon as possible. Interaction with the Regional and Sub-Regional Fora, through the GFAR: at the occasion of the GFAR meting in Durban (May 2001), representatives from EFARD could interact with GFAR and the Regional and Sub regional Fora (RF / SRF). They could explain the on going ERA-ARD building process, and request from RF / SRF suggestions and proposals in terms of IP and NoE. Such a contribution is important, as it represents the demand-side, and will thus give a stronger credibility to EFARD s proposals. As a result, the GFAR Secretariat collected the contributions from RF : SRF, and summarized them in a document entitled GFAR contribution to the EFARD proposal for the elaboration of the 6 th Framework Programme of the European Union. Interaction with the European National Fora: in the same time, a call was launched to all European National Fora to get their own proposals for potential IP and NoE, with a deadline fixed to late June. More than 80 proposals, mainly from 4 countries (France, Germany, Italy, and the Netherlands) have been sent to the EFARD Secretariat. All those proposals, both from RF / SRF and National Fora, has been clustered in 21 aggregated projects (IP and NoE), which are presented in a document entitled EFARD proposals for the ERA-ARD in the NFP. The purpose of such a document is to clearly present to the European Commission what are EFARD s views for the ERA-ARD, and what are the priorities (taking into account not only the incoming proposals, but also already assessed GFAR s and EFARD s priorities, as well as recognized international issues). This document will be used for further interaction with the EC, and could be the main reference for the Ministerial Conference. Further to this presentation, H. J. LUTZEYER provided details about the most recent developments in the preparation of the NFP: the European Parliament report on the NFP was finalized by end August, and should be presented to the Committee on Industry, External Trade Research and Energy, probably in September. Discussion: Several issues were addressed during the discussion: Should EFARD s efforts be directed more towards a Science or a Development point of view? In other terms, should the proposals tactically address the 7 main priorities of the NFP, or the 8 th priority in relation with the DG Development policy? According to H.J. LUTZEYER, both solutions are possible: the Euro 600 millions devoted to the international dimension of the NFP should be equally shared between the 7 priorities on one hand, and the 8 th priority on the other hand. One of the Ministerial Conference objectives could be to point to the opportunities a specific activity in ARD, funded by part of the Euro 300 millions of the 8 th priority. Other objectives include coherent programming of the Commission research and development instruments and the joint programmes with members States. A dialogue between EFARD and EIARD is needed for that purpose. As not much place had been left for ARD is the Parliament report, a contact with Mr CAUDRON, and perhaps other members of the already quoted Parliament Committee, would be highly desirable. Should the EFARD document still evolved? The current version is only a first draft, which needs some improvements: o a section showing how EFARD s proposals fit with the main international concerns (World Food Summit, international conventions on biodiversity, global climate changes, ) will be added; o in the same way, it is important to stress upon the fact that proposals could be seen as a reaction to the demand side; o the reference to the fact that only 4 National Fora have submitted proposals should be removed; o in the detailed fiches for each proposal, concrete results to be achieved within each project should be identified; o some of the 21 proposals will be merged. It is however important to present a sufficient number of proposals, not too general in nature, at the time being (further aggregation may occur, according to the results of the interaction with EIARD and the EC). The list of aggregated proposals should not be extended anymore. National Fora may indeed submit new projects, but it is assumed that they would probably fit with at least one existing proposal. If not, the list will be extended consequently. Decision: the modified document will first be presented to the EC (DGs Research and Development) in order to precisely identify for each proposal the most appropriate NFP instrument, and to possibly bring some changes accordingly in the proposals presentation. It will then be widely circulated among European National Fora and stakeholders, in order to get as much feed back as possible, with the objective to have a finalized document by mid 2 22/05/01

3 October. Later, once the proposals will be definitely fixed, a call for interest could be launched towards the scientific community, to start identifying potential participants to the future IP and NoE. When will the Ministerial Conference be organized? The earliest option is 11 December 2001, on the occasion of a Council of Research Ministers. It is however up to the DG Research, jointly with the EU Belgian Presidency (or Spanish Presidency if the Conference occurs in 2002), to organized it. The date remains quite uncertain, since it is not part of the agreed list of events with the Belgian Presidency. H.J. LUTZEYER underlined that such kind of Conference is the end of a process, not a starting point. That concretely means that most of the work has to be done before. Taking into account the uncertainty about the date of the Conference, the EFARD contribution should be ready as soon as possible. Decisions: The GFAR document will be distributed to all the National Fora, through the EFARD SC members, and will be made available on the EFARD Web server. A reply to Mr BUSQUIN will be sent, acknowledging his interest for ARD, proposing EFARD s help for the preparation of the Ministerial Conference, and announcing the finalized EFARD document will be send in October. The draft will be prepared by Henri ROUILLE d ORFEUIL. In a similar way, a letter to the Spanish Minister for Research will be prepared by H. ROUILLE d ORFEUIL, and sent through the Spanish National Fora, in order to already make him sensitive in case the Ministerial Conference will be organized under the EU Spanish Presidency (first half of 2002). 5. PRESENTATION OF INFOSYS AND THE INFOSYS WEBSITE H. FRANZEN, from the Infosys Coordination Unit hosted by ZADI, first recalled the main Infosys overall aims, namely: to facilitate the coordination among the European stakeholders in the field of ARD; to promote collaborations and partnership among them. The Infosys system offers a decentralised information service, through meta-databases, based on the principles of decentralization and generic technical development. Three systems are maintained by the coordination unit: the EIARD Web server, the EFARD Web server, and the Infosys server as such. The latest offers the possibility to the users, who are also the information providers, to share information related to: news; events; experts; training resources; exchanges of views through electronic fora. H. FRANZEN stressed on the fact that the Infosys system offers possibilities and opportunities to the European ARD Community, that might be used by stakeholders. Especially the impact of EFARD s efforts might be considerably increased by working on joint web presentation. Two ways are available on Infosys to enter data: either direct on-line entries by National Nodes or the Secretaries of National ARD Fora, or/and by the public. The later information is then processed by the National Nodes (list available on the Infosys Web server: Public entries raise the question of the responsibility and quality of the information. However, the revision of the information by the National Nodes is the major quality insurance of the present system. As far as the EFARD Web server is concerned, it was decided that all final documents to be published will be posted through the EFARD Secretariat. Finally, EIARD-Infosys calls for a broad participation of the European Forum Members to contribute to the joint information systems 6. PREPARATION OF THE 2 nd EFARD MEETING IN ROME, MAY 2002 The session was mainly devoted to the detailed review of the draft agenda prepared by the EFARD Working Group during its meeting in Firenze, on 30 May As a result, a modified agenda has been set up, and is appended to the minutes. It is now up to the EFARD Vice Chairman, with the support of the EFARD Secretariat, to contact the proposed chairmen and key speakers. Any additional suggestion from the EFARD SC members and National Fora in that respect should thus be sent to E. PORCEDDU. 3 22/05/01

4 7. MISCELLANEOUS GFAR / IFAD Workshop: GFAR and IFAD jointly organize a seminar on Methodologies, Organisation and Management of Global Partnership Programmes, to be held in Rome on 9-10 October E. PORCCEDU, as EFARD Vice Chairman, has been invited to attend. The invitation is also extended to other EFARD SC members. Decision: E. PORCEDDU, W. VAN VUURE and F. BOULIER will represent the EFARD SC to the workshop (H. ROUILLE d ORFEUIL and A. PERLINI will also attend the meeting, but on behalf of GFAR and the Italian Forum, respectively). Next meetings: The next Working Group meeting will be held in Leiden, on October 3, on the occasion of the EIARD Working Group meeting. It will mainly be devoted to an informal interaction with representatives of the European Commission (DG Research and Development) about the EFARD proposals on ERA-ARD. Another more official meeting with the EC / DG Research, involving different services in charge of thematic priorities and of research for development, will be organized mid-october, in order to present the final version of the EFARD document. The next EFARD SC meeting will be held in Brussels, on 22 February If the Ministerial-level Conference could be held in December, an additional EFARD SC meeting will be organized in Brussels, on 16 November. Low number of participants: The EFARD SC expressed its strong concern about the low number of participants to the EFARD SC meeting. It is hoped that it does not witness a loss of interest or involvement from some SC members or National Fora. It was decided that official invitations to future meetings will be sent by regular mail, further to the information already distributed through electronic mail. 4 22/05/01

5 Annex 1 LIST OF PARTICIPANTS Steering Committee members: BECKER Barbara BONTE-FRIEDHEIM Christian BORGES Joao BOULIER Fabien BRUHN Kaj CASTRO MARTINEZ Pilar LUTZEYER Hans Jörg PERLINI Alice PORCEDDU Enrico ROUILLE d ORFEUIL Henri STICKINGS Jeremy VAN VUURE Willem Switzerland Germany Portugal EFARD Secretariat Denmark & EFARD Secretariat Spain EIARD Italy Vice Chairman France United Kingdom The Netherlands Invited: FRANZEN Hubertus INFOSYS Coordination Unit Apologies: BIANCO Lucio FLANAGHAN Jim MURPHY Colin PRAGE Lennart SAS Luc EFARD Chairman Ireland Norway Sweden Belgium