About the Belgian Federal North Sea Research Programme
International Cooperation
International Cooperation
JPI
The Joint Programming Initiative (JPI), a concept introduced by the European Commission in July 2008, is one of the five initiatives for implementing the European Research Area (ERA). The aim of JPI is to increase the value of relevant national and EU R&D funding by concerted and joint planning, implementation and evaluation of national research programmes. Within the concept of Joint Programming, Member States shall coordinate national research activities, bundle resources, benefit from complementarities and develop common research agendas, in order to face the grand societal challenges – all in variable geometry and therefore on a voluntary basis. Joint Programming intends to tackle the challenges that cannot be solved solely on the national level and allows Member States to participate in those joint initiatives that seem useful for them.
BELSPO is participating on behalf of the Belgian Federal State in some of the JPI's in development.
The following JPI's are relevant to the marine and maritime sciences:
The Joint Programming Initiative for Healthy and Productive Seas and Oceans (JPI Oceans):
The Joint Programming Initiative Healthy and Productive Seas and Oceans (JPI Oceans) is a coordinating and integrating long-term platform, open to all EU Member States and Associated Countries who invest in marine and maritime research. While bringing together the interested Member States and Associated Countries the JPI Oceans aims to add value by: - avoiding fragmentation and unnecessary duplication - planning common and flexible initiatives - facilitating cooperation and foresighting - establishing efficient mechanisms for interaction and knowledge transfer between the scientific community, industry & services, and policy makers at high level to more effectively solve the grand challenges. In its role as a coordination platform, JPI Oceans will focus on making better and more efficient use of national research budgets, which represent 85% of the marine-maritime funding within Europe. One of the JPI’s goals is to develop joint research programs in which countries can be involved on a voluntarily basis (variable geometry). Participating countries will also decide what contribution to make: this may include institutional, project-related or new funds.
Read more on the JPI Oceans website...
The Joint Programming Initiative Connecting Climate Knowledge for Europe (JPI Climate)
JPI Climate will be a fundamental European initiative concerning the coordination of climate research funding. ‘Climate knowledge’ is understand in a rather broad sense, including all kinds of scientific knowledge on causes and consequences, on cost, risks and benefits of climate change as well as possible responses. JPI Climate intends to contribute to a highly coordinated knowledge development by not only improving the scientific expertise on climate change risks and adaptation options, but also by connecting that knowledge with decision-making on safety and major investments in climate-vulnerable sectors in Europe.
The JPI Climate:
- provides the platform where these objectives can be met, aligning national research priorities according to a jointly agreed Strategic Research Agenda (SRA) with the aim of complementing and supporting initiatives at the European level (ERANETs, FP8, Climate KIC, ESFRI Projects).
- facilitates the coordination, collaboration and exploitation of synergies while working against fragmentation and duplication of efforts. Coordination of the research base secured through national resources will help underpin European efforts to confront climate change.
- aims to respond to the needs of policy and decision makers and the European society at large for knowledge-based information and services to address climate change. The main objective of this programme is to provide integrated climate knowledge and decision support services for societal innovation.
- is innovative in its interdisciplinary approach in connecting natural- with socio-economic sciences and it is guided, coordinated and managed through a flexible collaborative governance mechanism.