EU-funded project develops roadmap for cooperative health research

The main goal of EU-LAC HEALTH is to define a detailed roadmap to guide policy-makers and other stakeholders on future actions to support cooperative health research between EU, Latin America and Caribbean countries. The roadmap has been and will continuously be developed with the input of leading scientists, policy-makers, programme owners and other stakeholders.

With this in mind, a series of workshops will be held to update progress on the project. The latest, opened by Keillor Rojas, Costa Rica´s vice-minister of science and technology, took place in Madrid on 26 and 27 February.

The workshop, the fifth to be held since its launch, was told that the roadmap will be developed using a policy-oriented approach with the aim being to provide lawmakers and research-funding bodies with new insights on how to best coordinate and finance cooperative health research between the two regions.

The event heard that an important effort will be made during the project to link and coordinate two important policy areas with strong involvement in health research funding: science and technology policy and, secondly, international development cooperation.

Rafael De Andres Medina, the Spanish-based project coordinator, said, 'The great feedback from the discussions and the enthusiastic and committed reactions of the audience demonstrated the great potential and need for a common approach to effectively institutionalize EU-LAC HEALTH research cooperation'.

'All valuable outcomes and inputs from the discussions will be taken into account to further develop the roadmap as well as interact with our ongoing initiatives.'

Several working groups have already been created, including ones on food security, biodiversity and climate change, ICT (Information and communications technologies) and renewable energies and health.

Speakers at the roadmapping workshop in Spain stressed the need for involving different health research policy areas, including policy governance and funding, scientific governance and stakeholders during the course of the initiative.

However, it was also acknowledged that while both regions, the EU and Latin America, have a strong scientific potential, the differences between and within the two regions have to be kept in mind when collaboration is envisaged. There was also a consensus that research infrastructures for cooperation between the EU and Latin American and Caribbean states still needs to be further explored.

The next EU-LAC HEALTH workshop is expected to take place at the end of October.