Category: STI

Interview on science cooperation with China in Austrian newspaper Die Presse: “Europa muss rote Linien definieren”

Gábor Szüdi and Philipp Brugner from our partner ZSI gave an interview to Austrian daily newspaper Die Presse about their report on science, technology and innovation cooperation between the EU and China in the field of digital technologies.

Together they spoke about practical examples where project-based cooperation between European and Chinese partners was reassessed after it was started due to risks of knowledge security or dual use. At the same time they re-emphasised the important status of China as a global partner to tackle the societal challenges of our time given the country’s strong scientific performance and its commitment to large-scale research and innovation investments contributing to tackling climate change, enhancing food security or further exploring the use of outer space by humans. Concludingly, they echoed ReConnect China’s general approach by underlining that trust-building between the two sides and at any level (national, institutional, individual) is crucial to shape reciprocally beneficial EU-China STI relations for the future.

You can find the interview on Die Presse online (with paywall).

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Photo by Fernando @cferdophotography on unsplash.com

Presentation of the EU-China STI analysis for the meeting of the European Network for Academic and Scientific Exchange with China

On November 10, 2023, Philipp Brugner from ZSI, ReConnect China task leader on EU-China science, technology and innovation analysis, took part in the ENASEC – European Network for Academic and Scientific Exchange with China online meeting to present the main outcomes of the recently finished analysis in the context of the ReConnect China project.

About ENASEC: The European Network for Academic and Scientific Exchange with China (ENASEC) is a sub-project of ENTRANCE (Expertise & Transfer Network on China & Europe). It is intended to serve the regular exchange between German and European universities and research institutions on cooperations with China. The experiences, strategies and framework conditions for cooperations with China, which differ from country to country, represent a special enrichment, which can also give impulses for the own practice. Potentially, however, the project will also address much more concrete questions, such as the extent to which heterogeneous China strategies can also influence intra-European cooperation and what possibilities exist to use the common weight as a bargaining chip vis-à-vis Chinese partners. The experience gained in shaping relations with China is potentially transferable to the management of academic and scientific collaborations with countries that come with specific legal, ethical, or political challenges.

ReConnect China Policy Briefs no.2 and 3 draw policy recommendations on EU-China STI cooperation in the big data-related scientific fields

Based on the comprehensive report on EU-China STI cooperation in the big data-related scientific fields (artificial intelligence, big data and machine learning), two more policy briefs were published by the project. We used the report’s key results and aimed at embedding them in the overall policy discourse and legislative framework pertaining to science and technology cooperation between the EU and China. As a corollary, current developments in STI policy-making both on the EU’s and China’s side are explained, with a particular focus on the question how both actors aim to govern the future proliferation and protection of data stemming from research on AI, BD and ML from a legal viewpoint. The policy briefs conclude with a list of policy recommendations addressed both to the EU and the Member States level. While any risks or unfavourable conditions in research cooperation with China that could potentially conflict the EU’s interests and values must definitely be taken into account, we recommend European R&I actors to take case-by-case decisions on concrete research cooperation offers from their Chinese counterparts that are grounded in information provided by specific risk assessment and due diligence services.

Report on EU-China cooperation in science, technology and innovation published

At the beginning of September, ZSI finished its work on the report on EU-China cooperation in STI. The report is part of ReConnect China’s WP1 on science and technology and features a co-publication and co-patent analysis aimed at assessing the volume of cooperation between European and Chinese R&I actors. Due to their high relevance as emerging technologies and being of specific interest both to the EU and China, the study’s focus has been limited to the fields of Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning and Big Data. Regarding the specific list of countries involved in this analysis, we defined “European countries” as the EU’s 27 Member States plus associated countries to Horizon Europe, namely the United Kingdom, Norway and Switzerland (= EU27/AC). In spite of the fact that only the UK has formally associated to Horizon Europe at the time of finalising this report, we decided to include Norway and Switzerland as well, given their strong role in the whole European R&I system. For both the co-publication and the co-patent analysis we worked with the latest data available from Web of Science from the PATSTAT database respectively (in both cases the period from 2011 to 2022).

Our analysis caters to the needs of a growing European demand to understand China’s involvement in science, technology and innovation cooperation with European actors better. At the same time, the empirical findings discussed in this report may be conducive to national and European R&I policy makers alike, given the on-going debate on how to address research cooperation with China in the future in the light of mounting concerns about security risks, the disregard for research integrity and the misuse of civilian research for military purposes (dual use).

ReConnect China_D1.1_Report on the results of research cluster on EU-China research cooperation_co-patent,co-publication analysis

First public report on EU-China STI cooperation forthcoming in August 2023

ZSI works on a study to shed light on research and innovation cooperation patterns between EU MS and China

The first public report of ReConnect China will be available in August 2023 and work on it has already started. ZSI leads on developing a report assessing cooperation patterns between R&I actors in China and the EU Member States. The study will be based on two specific dimensions of analyis:

  • Co-patenting analysis (last 10 years) based on EPO PATSTAT Global 2022 single edition (worldwide patent database: PATSTAT contains bibliographical and legal status patent data from leading industrialised and developing countries): The objective is to identify both prevalent, but also emerging cooperation networks between R&I institutions and private companies in China and the EU MS based on jointly filed patents
  • Co-publication analysis (last 10 years) based on Web of Science data for jointly authored scientific works between institutions/individuals from EU and China (classified by Science-Metrix ontology): The objective is to identify both prevalent, but also emerging cooperation networks between R&I institutions (research institutes and universities) in China and the EU MS based on jointly co-authored scientific publications

The analysis will be compared against the current policy background pertaining to EU-China negotiations and frameworks for cooperation in science, technology and innovation. At the end, the report’s findings shall be conducive for answering the following questions:

  1. In which economic sectors (based on co-patenting activities) and scientific fields (based on co-publication activities) does cooperation take place?
  2. What are challenges, drivers, perils, but also opportunities for EU partners when cooperating with China in STI?
  3. Do the cooperation patterns identified correspond to recommendations made in official EU policy documents related to STI (EU Global Approach to R&I/2021, Tackling R&I foreign interference/2022 etc.)?