European Commission hosts a bi-regional meeting with Latin America and the Caribbean

On 28 and 29 November 2023, the European Commission hosted the Senior Officials Meeting for the EU-CELAC Joint Initiative on Research and Innovation (JIRI). The meeting provided an opportunity to review joint bi-regional cooperation in research and innovation and to discuss shared priorities for the next years. More than 60 Officials from 14 EU Member States and 20 CELAC countries worked towards the development of a modernised joint Roadmap for EU-CELAC research and innovation, to continue our cooperation as agreed at the EU-CELAC Summit, in July 2023. The Senior Officials meeting was co-chaired by Maria-Cristina Russo, Director for International Cooperation at the European Commission and Inga Creese from Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, representing the CELAC Pro-Tempore Presidency (Community of Latin American and Caribbean states).

Particular attention was paid to cooperation in the areas of biodiversity, marine research, urban transitions, agriculture, digital transformation and health research. The meeting also addressed the joint work on mobility of researchers, research infrastructures and on open science, which are amongst most active areas of our cooperation with the region.

The current bi-regional roadmap will be updated in light of the discussions, in view of political endorsement at the first bi-regional meeting at Ministerial level in 2024. The new roadmap will also inform potential topics for the 2025-2027 work programmes of Horizon Europe. The topics will be clustered in the Horizon Europe participant portal to form a ‘LAC Initiative’.

It was agreed to establish bi-regional working groups on global challenges and on innovation. They will provide a regular dialogue between the EU and CELAC on these high-priority topics and will add to the growing research and innovation links between the two regions. A working group on research infrastructures already exists.

The region of Latin America and the Caribbean is highly active in collaboration on EU-funded research and innovation projects, with close alignment among the EU and LAC priority issues. More than 650 projects with CELAC participation have been funded by Horizon 2020 and Horizon Europe, and almost 6000 researchers have benefited from the support by the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions, helping them develop closer contacts with colleagues across the Atlantic.