June 22, 2009
Daejeon Convention Center, Daejeon, Korea
This event has been organised by Sigma Orionis and the Institute of Information Technology Advancement (IITA) in the framework of the COJAK FP7 project (see the About us section or download the COJAK flyer here), a project funded by the European Commission’s Directorate General Information Society and Media and aiming at supporting the development of EU-Korea cooperation on ICT research, particularly under the European Union’s FP7 research funding programme.
The event was part a series of COJAK-supported cooperation events that includes the “Cooperation Forums on ICT research” held in Seoul on June 16-17, 2008 and in Brussels on December 1-2, 2008, and the “Seminars” held in Daejeon on June 18, 2008 and in Brussels on December 3, 2008 (see the Events section of this web site).
Over 40 representatives from Korean and European universities, research institutes and companies based in Korea and active in the ICT area have participated in this event (see attendee list here).
The event programme (available here and allowing to access the presentations made during the event) included two parts, corresponding to the two main event objectives (introduced in the event announcement flyer available here):
• to introduce in detail the opportunities offered by FP7 to support the development of cooperation on ICT research between European and Korean organisations, this objective being addressed through the “Korea-EU cooperation under FP7” part of the event,
• to develop an open discussion on how to enable to a more substantial development of such cooperation projects, this objective being addressed through the “Seminar on Korea-EU cooperation framework” part of the event.
The event started by friendly welcome addresses from Sung-Ok Lee, President of IITA and Wolfgang Slawinski, Vice-President of EUCCK.
Then, after that Wolfgang Slawinski had provided an overview of EU-Korea cooperation framework, Roger Torrenti, coordinator of the COJAK project, made a more detailed presentation of the status and perspectives of EU-Korea cooperation on ICT research under FP7, interrupted by Q&A periods with the audience.
The next part of the event was devoted to contributions from organisations having accepted to share their experience of EU-Korea cooperation with event participants:
• Jorn Altman joined Seoul National University after having coordinated the GridEcon FP6 project focusing on the economics of grid computing. He considers that the Korean participation in this project has been a key success factor of the project (insisting more generally on the benefits of collaborative projects), and is today planning to submit new FP7 proposals with Korean participation.
• Mikko Sallinen presented the activities that VTT will develop through its newly created Korean branch (and through its other branches established in the USA, Russia, China, etc). He envisioned that their presence in Seoul will logically lead VTT to propose Korean organisations to join FP7 proposals that VTT will present in the future (VTT is currently involved in around 300 EU-funded projects).
• Wesley De Neve shared his experience of a young researcher in a European University involved in the first steps of cooperation with a Korean University and then becoming a post-doc researcher at this Korean University, which should allow a quicker development of the cooperation between the two Universities (this experience underlining the importance of the exchange of researchers in the development of international cooperation).
• Jordi Espluga Bach from CDTI (an organisation under the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation, MSI) presented the Spanish efforts to promote and support the involvement of Spanish organisations in international programmes such as FP7 and Eureka, but also in specific bilateral programmes, such as the KSI one (“Korea and Spain Innovating”) signed between MSI and the MKE (16 projects supported to date, including 2 in the ICT area).
• PyeongSoo Mah, from ETRI introduced a “success story”: a quite significant and fully successful involvement of ETRI in the EMMA FP6 project, today considered by ETRI as one of its major references. Both sides (ETRI and the European partners of the EMMA Consortium) declared themselves very satisfied of the developed cooperation at the end of the project. The story started with a visit to ETRI of the Head of the Embedded systems Unit of the European Commission, followed by working seminars in Europe and Korea leading to the submission of the proposal (the involvement and support of the thematic Unit in the proposal emergence process being considered as a key aspect).
The last part of the event, devoted to the “Korea-EU cooperation framework”, was mainly centered on a presentation from Yoo Duk Jun from KIAT, unveiling the plans that the Korean government have been finalising to support Korea-EU S&T cooperation, particularly under FP7, which logically raised a strong interest from participants and led to a long and lively Q&A period after the formal presentation.
Yoo Duk Jun first explained that the reorganisation of Korean Ministries and Agencies following the recent Korean presidential elections were reaching a final stage and that detailed roles, responsibilities, programmes, budgets, etc. should be finalised by the end of August 2009. KIAT, the Korean Institute for Advancement of Technology has emerged from this reorganisation, is under the Ministry of Knowledge Economy (MKE) and has been integrating many responsibilities devoted until now to other entities (IITA, KOTEF, etc.). KIAT should be in charge of international R&D cooperation, through an ambitious programme not only focusing on Europe (FP7, bilateral programmes, Eureka: Korea has just become a Eureka associated partner) but also on the USA, Russia, Japan, etc. However the Ministry for Education, Science and Technology (MEST), through KICOS, should remain in charge of international cooperation when long term research and Universities are concerned.
Concerning the support of the Korean government to FP7, things are progressing quite rapidly, KAIT being the main contact point in Korea (the fact that KAIT might be the FP7 NCP or that a specific NCP for the ICT theme would be nominated has to be clarified). A devoted web site has been opened http://fp.or.kr allowing Korean organisations to find useful information on FP7 and interact with the Agency. Korean organisations can benefit from a match-funding mechanism, which might become automatic: at the moment this funding can be taken (when authorized by the Agency) from existing budgets granted to the research organisation for their ongoing programmes or it can be granted by the Agency from specific funds (the Korean Telecom company KT has for instance recently received from KAIT the funding necessary to KT’s involvement, as a full partner, in the FP7 NoTube project). Korean organisations can even receive today a (limited) financial support in the preparation phase of FP7 proposals.
In his concluding address Sang-kil Lee from IITA expressed his gratitude to all participants for having attended the event and his satisfaction when considering the intensity and quality of exchanges during the day. He then invited participants to share an informal open networking moment during which many participants shared the feeling that EU-Korea cooperation on ICT research was indeed in good tracks, benefitting from the determination and dynamism of organisations from both sides and from a more and more propitious political and operational framework.
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