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News Releases
No. 10/07
February 12, 2007
EU AND US AGREE TO COOPERATE ON ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH AND ECOINFORMATICS
Under a new
agreement reached on Friday, February 9th, by
the European Union and the United States, scientists and
researchers from both continents will be working closer
together to address common
environmental challenges more strategically. The Environmental Protection
Agency of the United States government and the European
Commission, the executive arm of the European Union,
have agreed on an “Implementing Arrangement on
Environmental Research and
Ecoinformatics” (the science
of information in ecology and environmental science),
which was negotiated under the auspices of the bilateral
Science and Technology Agreement between the United
States and the European Union.
 “This bilateral research framework marks a new level of
collaboration between the US EPA and the Commission to
help ensure that our efforts to protect the environment
and public health, while promoting wealth through
eco-innovation, are strongly supported by sound science.
The collaboration will bring closer together scientists
who are involved in policy analysis research and in this
way help mutual understanding of topical environmental
policy questions" said
José Manuel Silva Rodríguez,
Director-General for
Research of the European
Commission.
Following EPA Administrator Stephen L. Johnson's
signature in Washington, Director-General José Manuel
Silva Rodríguez signed the implementing arrangement on
the margins of the EU-US Joint Consultative Group
meeting on 9 February in Brussels. The Joint
Consultative Group monitors the bilateral science and
technology cooperation and discussed new transatlantic
initiatives.
Among the collaborative research topics included in the
Implementing Arrangement are:
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environmental information systems;
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development of environmental and sustainability
indicators;
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environmental modelling;
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decision support tools;
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environment and health;
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sustainable chemistry and materials;
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uses and impacts of nanotechnology;
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environmental technologies and
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air quality management.
Cooperation under the EPA-EC Implementing Arrangement is
expected to take many forms, including direct
collaboration between US and European researchers and
consortia; joint sponsorship of conferences, workshops
and meetings; coordinated calls for proposals and mutual
participation in peer reviews and exchanges of
information, methodologies and data.
An opportunity to turn this arrangement into practice is
cooperation under the newly-launched
7th EU Research
Framework Programme (FP7, 2007-2013). Certain relevant
topics are included already in the first calls for
proposals, which were launched a few weeks ago with
deadline for proposal submission in May 2007. The calls
are published on
http://cordis.europa.eu/fp7/dc/index.cfm .
For further information on European research and details
on each facet of the package, please visit:
http://www.ec.europa.eu/research/index.cfm
.
Further Contact Information
Press and Public Diplomacy
Delegation of the European Commission
2300 M Street, NW
Washington, DC 20037
http://www.eurunion.org/PressRoom
Tel: 202-862-9552
Fax: 202-429-1766
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