The shift in China’s strategy focusing towards R&I and transforming the essence of its economy has been complimented with massive public investments in research and technology. In order to tackle critical global issues demanding close scientific and technological cooperation at an international level, EU has identified in China a natural partner able to contribute and complement its own capacity. Beginning of 2015, major European and Chinese Research & Academic organisations, Innovation intermediaries, Public Authorities, Funding agencies and SMEs have teamed up to provide an answer to this necessity and foster EU-China cooperation in the large spectrum of S&T RDI topics.
The three-year project (2015-2018) was funded by the European Commission’s HORIZON 2020 program and aimed at strengthening Europe-China bilateral cooperation in research and innovation. Over 3 years, through the DRAGON STAR Plus project and building on the results of the DRAGON STAR project, they:
- Supported the European and Chinese research communities to establish collaborations under Horizon 2020 and beyond.
- Provided a cooperation platform and tools to policy makers, aiming ultimately to support and enhance the bilateral cooperation, through the concept of mutual benefit.
- Provided an ERA-NET style platform to funding agencies for exchanging best practices and planning joint activities in the field.
PRAXI Network was the project coordinator, while a foresight study was also carried out within the project, which included:
- Mapping knowledge areas, knowledge ecosystems and technology sectors emerging in China and expected to be strong in the future.
- Mapping consumer, social, economic and environmental trends that are expected to affect China’s innovation landscape by 2030.
- Interviews with experts, researchers and entrepreneurs and conducting a Delphi study
- Running future scenario analysis workshops examining different possible future scenarios for the 2030 Research and Innovation ecosystem in China, which were explored in the light of current trends
- The final deliverable was the development of scenarios for the evolution of the innovation environment in China by 2030.
