JAKARTA, Sept 10 (NNN-BERNAMA) – Nineteen ASEAN research institutions will benefit from new research grants provided by the European Union (EU), the EU Mission to ASEAN has announced.
According to Vietnam News Agency (VNA), these research institutions are among 74 winning consortia globally under the European Commission’s 2020 call for proposals of the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions – Research and Innovation Staff Exchange (MSCA-RISE).
A total of 408 proposals had been received.
It said the EUR80-million initiative will promote international and cross-sector collaboration through exchanging innovative research and staff, and sharing knowledge and ideas from research to market and vice-versa.
The MSCA-RISE results reconfirm the strong EU commitment to mobility of researchers.
“Global mobility for researchers is even more important in times of COVID-19,” said Igor Driesmans, EU Ambassador to ASEAN.
“In the past months, we have seen the relentless involvement of researchers from all over the world to the fight against COVID-19. ASEAN research institutes were in regular contact with their EU counterparts.”
“The pandemic might have stopped physical exchanges but clearly not the willingness to work together,” he said, adding that research cooperation between the EU and ASEAN is a crucial pillar of the bilateral relationship.
— NNN-BERNAMA