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Moscow (pte049/29.01.2003/15:11) - Russian and European space research representatives met in Moscow on 23 and 24 January to identify areas of EU research projects where Russian organisations could participate. In an interview with Cordis News, Hartwig Bischoff from the Commission's space research unit said that the event had gone much better than expected. While the event had originally been expected to attract 80 Russian organisations and 60 from Western Europe, some 180 organisations were represented from the host country and 120 made the journey from the rest of Europe.
The moderators found the participants to be well prepared and a number of new contacts were made, which could lead to the integration of research projects, particularly the Galileo (satellite navigation) project and GMES (global monitoring of the environment and security).
According to Mr Bischoff, while the researchers from Western Europe were already aware of the expertise in Russia, they were nonetheless impressed by the extent of the expertise, particularly from new institutes.
The EU's Sixth Framework Programme (FP6) offers opportunities for cooperation between Europe and Russia in space research, and in particular in the fields of satellite navigation, global monitoring of the environment and security, satellite communications, space related life and physical sciences and human and robotic exploration. Some 1,075 billion euros will be allocated to aerospace research under FP6.
'We are not building an EU science and technology fortress. On the contrary, our interest is to build a European Research Area that is open to the world and cooperation with Russian scientists and industry on space matters, which is of undeniable mutual interest,' said EU Research Commissioner Philippe Busquin.
The workshop was organised by the European Commission, the Russian Aviation and Space Agency (Rosaviakosmos) and the European Space Agency (ESA).
Mr Bischoff said that the Commission would like to continue the structure of the workshop on the EU-Russia space research website. It is hoped that working groups will be created for each of the six areas addressed at the Moscow event.
For further information on EU-Russian space research cooperation, please visit: http://europa.eu.int/comm/space/russia/index_en.html
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