Start of a close collaboration with Latvia on research and innovation

Deputy Director-General, Signe Ratso and her colleagues met on 9 and 10 March in Riga with Latvian counterparts, including State Secretary Līga Lejiņa, to discuss Latvia’s R&I state of play and the potential support DG Research & Innovation can offer to help the Latvian R&I become more robust. The meetings were part of the Enhanced Dialogue between DG R&I and the government of Latvia that kicked off on 8 February with a bilateral meeting between Commissioner Mariya Gabriel and the Latvian Minister for Education and Science, Anda Čakša in Stockholm.

The discussions in Riga covered a wide range of topics including the New European Innovation Agenda, research assessment and careers, Open Science, Synergies between Horizon Europe and ERDF, EU Missions as well as recent policy development in Latvia on higher education, innovation and open science. It mobilised different Ministries and key stakeholders from the Latvian side and several Commission services on the EU side, allowing to raise the awareness on the latest R&I-related novelties. The very rich presentations by both parties were followed by lively discussions, exchange of views and concrete ideas for follow-up actions. During the Dialogue, the Latvian Ministry of Education and Science expressed its intention to sign the Coalition of Advancing research Assessment.

Both parties expressed their satisfaction on the openness and deepness of the exchange. This being the first kick-off discussion touching on several subjects, it was already decided to follow-it up shortly with technical meetings, namely to go deeper on synergies, EU missions and science communication. DG Research and Innovation will also support Latvia in the design of the upcoming international evaluation of their research institutions.

Background

Enhanced dialogues with EU countries are a new, bottom-up channel of cooperation with the European Commission. The goal of these dialogues is to create a country-tailored approach to foster research and innovation in the participating EU country. They are organised on a voluntary basis and built around topics depending on the interests of the country.

Latvia is the 6^th Member State to take part in an Enhanced Dialogue.

More information

Enhanced dialogue with EU countries