By March 2017, 23 National ERA action plans and strategies were made available (in English) in the ERA Portal Austria. As 3 of them did not address directly the 6th priority: international cooperation, the 20 remaining Roadmaps have been reviewed to underline the objectives and related measures, that were considered as the most relevant ones to develop and implement joint strategic approaches and actions for international STI cooperation on the basis of their national priorities.
Not every country has addressed general objectives/goals and specific actions/measures with similar detail and consistency. Despite this challenge, synergies have been found around 5 main objectives where there is a common ground and mutual interest. These objectives are:
- Define national strategies and funding instruments for internationalisation to foster stronger cooperating with key third countries
- Increasing strategic partnerships with selected regions/3rd countries through bilateral cooperation
- Increase STI capacity of Europe by attracting the best talent and advance excellence in research
- Strengthening the cooperation between MS/ACs in programming, monitoring and review of international activities and especially in alignment of national RI programmes to tackle global challenges jointly
- Strengthening the SFIC’s role (Strategic Forum for International Cooperation in Science and Technology) in coordination between European MS/AC initiatives and EC programmes and policies to support international cooperation is STI.