The Republic of Korea and the EU reaffirmed the commitment to their strategic partnership in a high-level summit and agreed to explore cooperation in R&I.
The Republic of Korea and the European Union are celebrating the 10th anniversary of their Strategic Partnership this year. On this occasion, a high-level online meeting between Moon Jae-in, President of the Republic of Korea, Charles Michel, President of the European Council and Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission took place on 30 June, where the parties reaffirmed their commitment.
Amongst other topics, the Presidents agreed to explore cooperation opportunities in research and innovation (R&I). Bilateral cooperation will be valued in several fields of European priority. Especially mentioned were the energy transition towards a green economy and the promotion of renewable and innovative green energy resources, as well as the fourth digital revolution. Cooperation shall harness human-centric digitalisation and promote a safe and ethical implementation of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies. In addition to strengthening R&I cooperation in the area of digitalisation, the Presidents also agreed on launching a High-Level Dialogue on the digital economy in the near future.
Given the current situation, the Covid-19 crisis was high on the meeting’s agenda as well. The EU leaders praised the Republic of Korea’s innovative response to the outbreak, and the transparent and democratic measures taken. They welcomed the cooperation between the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety of Korea and the European Medicines Agency in relation to Covid-19 and agreed to strengthen relations further involving all the relevant health authorities on both sides. Particular areas of cooperation will include mutual support to ensure access to medical products as well as R&I of vaccines and medicines to respond to emerging infectious diseases. The EU side also acknowledged the Korean contribution to their pledging initiative of the “Coronavirus Global Response”.
The EU-Republic of Korea Strategic Partnership was established in 2010 and is underpinned by a Framework Agreement, a Free Trade Agreement and a Framework Participation Agreement for EU crisis management operations. In their efforts to strengthen the Partnership and explore further areas of cooperation, the Presidents look forward to holding a physical summit in Seoul as soon as the conditions allow.
A separate agreement on Scientific and Technological Cooperation between the European Community and the Government of the Republic of Korea already entered into force in April 2007. Since then, cooperation has focused on several thematic areas such as nanosciences, materials and production, or information and communication technologies, and the parties have engaged in a structured policy dialogue. Activities also include EU-Korea research and innovation days, Cooperation Roadmaps in Science, Technology and Innovation, as well as a network of EU centres in Korean universities. Entities from the Republic of Korea successfully participate as third country partners in projects of the R&I framework programmes and several initiatives to intensify and strengthen the regional S&T cooperation between Korea and the European Research Area (ERA) were initiated during FP7 (e.g. KORANET).
Switzerland has been running a bilateral R&I cooperation programme with the Republic of Korea since 2009. The programme includes an instrument for the exchange of young researchers as well as several seed funding options managed by the Swiss Leading House ETH Zurich and the Korean National Research Foundation (NRF), as well as a cooperation with joint calls between the Swiss National Science Foundation and the NRF.