Kick-Off Meeting of Horizon 2020 project SEnECA on 23/24 January
From 23 to 24 January 2018, a kick-off meeting of the recently started Horizon 2020 project “SEnECA – Strengthening and energizing EU-Central Asia Relations” will take place at our institute in Berlin. The meeting is the first opportunity for the twelve consortium members from think tanks, universities and NGOs in Europe and Central Asia to come together and lay the foundation for future cooperation within the two years of the project.
The relations to Central Asia are an important element of the changing transatlantic and geopolitical setting that the EU is currently facing. The main goal of SEnECA is to improve research cooperation and to strengthen capacities in research and policy advice in the EU and Central Asia. An international consortium led by Dr. Katrin Böttger, Deputy Director of the Institut für Europäische Politik (IEP) and Prof. Dr. Michael Kaeding, professor for European politics at the University of Duisburg-Essen (UDE) will map and analyse the relations between the two regions in order to make recommendations to stakeholders on future research cooperation, policies and communication. The project is funded with around 1.5 million Euros under the European Commission’s Horizon 2020 programme.
During the kick-off meeting, Sylvie Rohanova, Directorate-General for Research and Innovation of the European Commission will give an overview of the Horizon2020 programme and discuss open questions with the consortium members. Furthermore, all consortium members will present their tasks and planned activities within the three main work packages: 1. New Forms and Priorities for Scientific Cooperation, 2. Future Priorities for EU Policy-Making towards Central Asia and 3. Awareness-Raising, Dissemination and Communication. During a round table with Michael Siebert, Head of the Division on Central Asia and the Southern Caucasus at the German Federal Foreign Office, current developments within the EU-Central Asia relations can be dwelled upon and will provide input for a series of policy papers that will be published within SEnECA in the coming two years.