Dear Members,

 

Last Friday 7 July 2017, EOC Brussels had a meeting with the Brussels office of Rectors’ Conference of Spanish and Portuguese Universities. The meeting was scheduled following an invitation by the Rector of the University of Seville to establish a dialogue among universities of Mediterranean countries on projects proposals under the upcoming PRIMA call. The new Partnership on Research and Innovation in the Mediterranean Area (PRIMA), based on Article 185 TFEU which enables the EU to participate in research programmes undertaken jointly by several Member States, will develop solutions for a more sustainable management of water and agro-food systems.

 

The invitation was addressed during a COST workshop “Water for Food and Agriculture in the Mediterranean Area”, organised by COST on 28 June 2017, which the EOC attended.

 

The purpose of the aforementioned meeting was to explore opportunities of cooperation between the Cypriot / Greek universities and the Spanish / Portuguese universities under PRIMA. It was agreed to prepare a document with the profile of interested researchers from Cyprus and Greece that will be sent to peers in Spanish/Portuguese universities.

 

If you are interested in establishing links with Spanish / Portuguese universities for PRIMA projects, please fill in the table below, and send it back to eoc.brussels2@ucy.ac.cy by Monday 31 July 2017.

 

Organisation	Name of researcher	Email	Research profile and relevant projects (max. 200 words)	PRIMA Thematic Area of interest and topics of interest (see draft Annual Work Plan 2018 – please mention the topics in which you are interested in applying as coordinator or partner)

 

For your information, please, find attached the draft PRIMA Annual Work Plan 2018 that will be officially published in January 2018. It covers the priorities described in the PRIMA Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda (SRIA) under the three PRIMA thematic areas:

1) Integrated and sustainable management of water for arid and semi-arid Mediterranean areas (hereafter referred as Water Management);

2) Sustainable farming systems under Mediterranean environmental constraints (Farming systems );

3) Sustainable Mediterranean agro-food value chain for regional and local development (Agro-food Value Chain). It will also address the crosscutting issues (soil sustainability, food security).

 

PRIMA main activities will be Calls for RIA, completed by additional activities aimed at reinforcing links between research and innovation (empowerment of young entrepreneurs, involvement of end-users in PRIMA activities, etc.)

 

Calls for RIA will be launched inside a unique framework. This unique framework will comprise two sections:

·         Section 1 Calls will be funded by the EU contribution and

·         Section 2 Call will be funded by the National Contribution of PRIMA participating countries.

 

The preannouncement of the Calls will be done in January and Calls schedules have been established for being able to contract with research consortia before the end of 2018, as funding commitments have been done on 2018 budgets.

 

The budget from the EU in PRIMA WP 2018 is planned to be 30 to 31 million euros, of which 27 million euros will be allocated to the Section 1 RIA Call, whereas the total funding commitments from Participating States (including EU Members, AC and MPCs) will be at least 30 million euros, and even more considering participating countries already initiated activities.

 

Thank you very much for your cooperation.

 

We will be at your disposal for further information of clarifications.

Attached Files

 

 

Best regards,

Rosemary

 

Rosemary STREVINIOTI

Head of Brussels Office
European Office of Cyprus
Rue du Luxembourg 3, 2nd floor
B-1000 Brussels
Tel./Fax: +32 (0) 2 280 22 85
E-mail: strevinioti.rozamaria@ucy.ac.cy

 

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