Page 58 - ASEAN-EU Dialogue 2018: Regional and Inter-Regional Economic Cooperation: Identifying Priorities for ASEAN and the EU

of Health, Food, Agriculture, Biotechnology and Environment. However, Salton measure (total
collaboration between EU and ASEAN in a FP7 area/total publications in FP7 area) showed
Environment area towering over others – inferring high joint research activity in this field. The
heightened research activity in this area reflects the concern of Climate change world-over and
the serious transboundary haze and deforestation an issue in the ASEAN region of Indonesia,
Malaysia and Singapore. Nonetheless, EU produces far more papers than ASEAN and
miniscule proportion of this is a joint research activity between ASEAN and EU. This is a
matter of concern especially since ASEAN and EU have strong trade relations, but this is not
reciprocated through their joint research activity.

The European Union has launched a series of international cooperation network (INCO-NET)
projects with the aim to supporting bi-regional policy dialogue (Hassan et al., 2012). The
projects promote and structure the participation of third countries in the activities of the
Seventh Framework Program for Research and Technological Development (FP7) thematic
areas - Nanotechnology; Energy; Health; Food, Agriculture and Biotechnology; Environment;
Information and Communication Technology (ICT); and Industrial Technology. As we may
notice most of them are core Technology areas that promise to make our lives better. Discussion
on FP9 are in the works now.

Horizon 2020 and APASTI
Horizon 2020, the financial instrument implementing the Innovation Union, is EU’s flagship
initiative aimed at securing Europe’s global competitiveness. Running from 2014 to 2020 with
a budget of just over €70 billion (or €80 billion in current prices), the EU’s new programme
for research and innovation is part of the drive to create new growth and jobs in Europe. The
instrument has parity with FP7. The signed collaborative projects under Horizon 2020 are
mainly in the same areas - as earlier EU Research Programme FP7, namely Health, Food, ICT,
Environment, and Nanotechnologies, which indicates a sustained continuity. The initiative is
to take ideas from lab to market faster and anyone meeting the eligibility criteria could apply.

In a recent meeting held in July 2018 in Brussels, European Council has confirmed to set-up a
European Innovation Council for market-creating innovation under the next EU long-term
budget. The Council also invited the Commission to launch a new pilot initiative on
breakthrough innovation within the remaining time of Horizon 2020.

ASEAN Plan of Action on STI (APASTI) 2016-2025, adopted at 16th ASEAN Ministerial
Meeting on S&T on 6 Nov 2015 in Vientiane, Lao PDR, is very comprehensive - consisting of
4 thrust areas, 6 Goals, 8 Clusters, 9 Focus fields and 43 Priority areas. APASTI maps well
with the EU’s H2020. There are similarities between the APASTI and EU STI policy objectives,
and within its process there are many avenues for collaboration open to researchers.

One of the major initiatives of EU-ASEAN S&T co-operation was demonstrated through the
implementation of SEA-EU-NET project, under FP7-INCO, that ran for 4 years, from January
2008 to December 2012. EU contributed majority of the total funding of approximately47
million Euros, with the rest (about 13%) coming from the other beneficiaries. SEA-EU-NET
and later SEA-EU-NET 2 played an important role in disseminating and facilitating joint
actions by both EU and ASEAN in the field of STI during FP7.

The ‘driver seat’ effort by the EU to increase the number and quality of joint projects between
EU and Southeast Asian counterparts was in line with its policy to contribute to its S&T
foundation, thereby meeting its political, social and economic aims. Some of the major issues

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