7th reunion of the senior officials of the CELAC-UE

Within the framework of the president pro tempore of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), the Salvadorian minister of Foreign Affairs, Hugo Martínez, and the vice minister of Science and Technology, Erlinda Hándel Vega, inaugurated the 7th reunion of the senior officials on Science and Technology of the joint initiative CELAC-UE (JIRI-SOM).

The JIRI/SOM is a technical meeting that converts into a space for dialogue about investigation and innovation to strengthen the cooperation between both regions; Encouraging the mutual learning of the policies in those areas as well as guaranteeing the effectiveness of the cooperation’s instruments.

Some of the main topics of the JIRI-SOM are: The mobility of researchers, the infrastructure of investigation and enhanced thematic cooperation.

Within the results that are expected to be achieved, there should be mentioned the presentation of progress made on the Advices of Public Policies on Science, Technology and Innovation (STI) in countries of the CELAC in the pursuit of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), the progress realized of the first meeting of the working group about the infrastructure of investigation and the presentation of identified projects under the program Horizonte 2020 in the topics of non-communicable diseases and sustainable urbanization.

26 countries from Latinamerica, the Caribbean and the European Union participated in the event, among them: Argentina, Barbados, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Finland, France, Germany, Guatemala, Honduras, Italy, Jamaica, Luxembourg, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Portugal, Spain and Uruguay.

The reunion was also co-chaired by Begoña Arano, director of the unit of Northamerica, Latinamerica and the Caribbean, of the Division of Investigation and Innovation of the European Union.

In the sake of strengthening the bi-regional dialogue and the JIRI-SOM, there will be workshops octobre 3rd and 4th about topics on health such as “Non-communicable diseases”, “Sustainable urbanization” and “Capacity-building Horizonte 2020”.