IP/07/48
Brussels, 16 January 2007
European Science & Research Commissioner makes first official visit to Israel - 17 & 18 January 2007 European Science & Research Commissioner Janez Potočnik will make his first official visit to Israel on 17 & 18 January. Israel has been a fully associated member of the EU's research funding programmes since 1996 and both the EU and Israel have benefited from this partnership. During his visit, Commissioner Potočnik will meet members of the Israeli government and will attend a conference on Israel's participation in the EU's research programme FP7 at Bar Ilan University. He will also meet with representatives of the Israel academic and business communities. His discussions with Israel will focus on ongoing negotiations to finalise Israel's association to FP7, and highlighting the importance of research as an element of the overall EU-Israel relationship. Commissioner Potočnik said "Israeli research bodies have participated with their European colleagues in over 500 projects funded by the Sixth Framework Programme. I am looking forward to using this visit to Israel to talk to researchers and companies that have participated in previous programmes, to hear directly from them what they got out of their involvement, and to encourage their involvement in the Seventh Framework Programme. I am very confident that Israel will be as active, reliable and effective a partner in the new programme as it has been in the past."
As an associated country within the EU's research framework programme, Israel participates in the programme on the same footing as EU Member States. It has done so very successfully in past programmes, particularly in areas such as information and communication technologies and life sciences. During his visit, Commissioner Potočnik will express his confidence that the negotiations for Israeli association to the Seventh Framework Programme will soon be concluded. The Seventh Framework Programme will introduce several new elements that can be very interesting for Israeli researchers, such as the European Research Council providing funding for frontier research.
During his 2 days in Israel, Commissioner Potočnik will visit examples of existing EU-Israel cooperation. He will meet Vice Prime Minister Shimon Peres, Minister of Industry, Trade and Labour Eli Ishai and the acting Minister of Science, Culture and Sport, Mrs Yael Tamir. In the margins of an EU-Israel conference on Science Policy at Bar Ilan University he will brief the press on his visit and meet the President of the University, Prof. Moshe Kaveh.
