A delegation of EU representatives presented the many opportunities available for increasing collaboration between Southeast Asian and European researchers at the 17^th ASEAN Ministerial Meeting on Science and Technology in Naypyidaw, Myanmar, on 19^th October 2017.

The delegation, led by Konstantinos Glinos of the European Commission, highlighted the similarities between the ASEAN Plan of Action on Science, Technology and Innovation (APASTI) and EU STI policy objectives, and presented the many avenues for collaboration open to researchers, including Horizon 2020, information services offered by EURAXESS, and opportunities for jointly funded SEA-EU projects through the Southeast Asia-Europe Joint Funding Scheme (JFS).

The delegation announced the upcoming calls for Horizon 2020 funding (the new Work Programme 2018-2020 was published on October 29 – visit this link), and presented the preliminary outcomes of the 1^st call of the Southeast Asia-Europe Joint Funding Scheme (JFS) which had taken place on 16-17 October in Bangkok, Thailand.

In addition to this, a number of side events took place to further promote SEA-EU collaboration in science, technology and innovation. During the Ministerial Meeting, the delegation engaged in a number of bilateral discussions with Thai and Vietnamese funding agencies, while a European Union booth at the ASEAN STI week promoted all of the mentioned opportunities to interested researchers. The JFS Secretariat also held a side-event on the 20 October for representatives of ASEAN funding agencies which would be interested in participating in future JFS calls.

The first Joint Call of the Southeast Asia-Europe Joint Funding Scheme (JFS) for research and innovation has succeeded in securing commitments to fund 10 projects, which will bring together research teams from both regions to tackle some of the most pressing issues faced today in the fields of health and climate change. 

The meetings of the JFS Scientific Committee and Programme Steering Committee were held in Bangkok, Thailand, on the 16 and 17 October respectively, and were attended by representatives from many research funding agencies from across South East Asia and Europe.The meetings were hosted by the National Science and Technology Development Agency (NSTDA) Thailand and the  Thailand Center of Excellence for Life Sciences (TCELS).

In this first call, two areas of research were selected for funding; firstly projects related to health, focusing specifically on anti-microbial drug resistance and emerging infectious diseases, and secondly, on projects relating to the environment and climate change which have a specific focus on adaptation / resilience of food production systems, and the impacts of climate change on ecosystems and biodiversity.

The successful proposals were announced in December, and are expected to start in the early months of 2018. Given the considerable success of the 1^st Call, the JFS Secretariat received unanimous support from those present to hold a 2^nd Call in 2018. It is hoped that this continuation will attract even more participating countries and funding agencies from both regions to fund many more joint projects in the future.