First meeting of the EU - Republic of Armenia Joint Research and Innovation Committee under Horizon Europe

The first meeting of the EU-Armenia Joint Research and Innovation Committee under the agreement associating Armenia to Horizon Europe took place in Brussels on 16 November 2022, under the co-chairmanship of Ms. Anne Haglund-Morrissey, Deputy Head of the Horizon Europe Association Unit, European Commission’s Directorate-General for Research and Innovation and Mr. Artur Martirosyan, Deputy Minister for Education, Science, Culture and Sports of the Republic of Armenia.

The meeting was hosted by the European Commission, DG RTD, and organised in a close cooperation with DG EAC, DG JRC, DG NEAR and the EEAS. The EC co-chair welcomed the EU and Armenian representatives, highlighted the many participation opportunities in Horizon Europe for the Armenian research and innovation community, and welcomed Armenia’s ongoing national reforms in the area of R&I and commitment to support the performance of its entities and researchers in the new programme. The EU co-chair referred to the new association agreement as an important milestone in the EU-Armenia cooperation in the field of research and innovation. Association to Horizon Europe is seen in Armenia as a crucial building block towards even closer relations with the EU. The EU highlighted that Armenia has been successfully associated to EU R&I Programmes already since 2016 and welcomed the positive trend of the Armenian participation in the Framework R&I Programme so far and emphasised the EU’s continued intention to support and assist the Armenian R&I community with information on future Horizon Europe calls and specific support measures aiming to increase the participation of Armenia in Horizon Europe.

The EU side recalled the 2020 European Research Area policy Agenda, the 2022 European Innovation Agenda and the 2021 EC Communication on the Global Approach to Research and Innovation and invited Armenia to actively participate in relevant activities. It encouraged Armenia to play an active role in the ERA Forum and stressed the importance of “widening” measures and policies to increase Armenia’s participation in the EU Horizon Europe programme. The Parties then discussed Armenia’s performance in Horizon 2020 and highlighted some lessons learned that could further support Armenia in fully benefitting from the many opportunities offered by the new framework programme in line with the values and principles underpinning the European Research Area.

The two sides discussed the network of the National Contact Points, the participation opportunities for Armenia as an observer in the Programme Committee configurations, the national measures to support the research and innovation system in Armenia, the principle of reciprocity in the association agreement, the recent statistics of Armenia’s participation in the first calls of Horizon Europe and the ongoing Policy Support Facility (PSF) review, including a possibility for a new PSF to be requested under Horizon Europe. The meeting also discussed the participation of Armenia in other Horizon Europe actions like Widening, the European Innovation Council, Missions and Partnerships, the European Research Council, the Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA), and activities in collaboration with the European Commission Joint Research Centre.

This high-level meeting inaugurated a new era in the R&I cooperation between the European Union and the Republic of Armenia. It was confirmed that the dialogue between both Parties is strong and open, and Armenia is progressing well working with the EU in reaching the European Research Area objectives.

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International cooperation with Armenia