ISTOK-SOYUZ internal call for proposals is opened

According to ISTOK-Ru (www.istok-ru.eu) project’s findings there are important barriers relevant to the promotion of FP7 - ICT in Russia, which is also typical for other EECA countries such as:

- Difficulties for the non-EU partners in understanding calls’ requirements,

- Willingness of the Russian partners to lead the technical part and disagreement of EU coordinators on this issue,

- Wrong approaches to partner search (push of the technology idea instead of promoting competences…)

However, in spite of these barriers, the strong potential for ICT R&D collaboration between organisations in the targeted EECA countries and EU partners is regularly confirmed. To leverage this potential:

- benefits of collaboration with European partners needs to be widely communicated,

- information about collaboration opportunities needs to be widely diffused,

- lessons learnt and potential problems – such as “missing the topic of the call” - need to be known,

- ICT specialists still hesitant “to enter into a FP7-ICT project” need to be identified and motivated,

- customized hands-on support for ICT R&D teams in the targeted countries need to be intensified,

- success stories and partnerships need to be increased.

To address these needs, the ISTOK-SOYUZ team launched the call for proposals in Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Armenia, and Kazakhstan. The aim of the ISTOK-SOYUZ internal call for proposal is to select at least 15 organizations with strongest ICT R&D collaboration potential from the five targeted countries of EECA, and to provide them with personalized support in order to increase number of ICT partnerships under FP7.

Detailed information about the call and the Application kit you can find here.