The EC published its report on the Implementation of a Strategy for International Cooperation on October 13, 2016 (COM2016/657) higlighting that:

1. On the whole of all Horizon 2020 WPs strongly encourage international participation in consortia and the number of topics flagged as particularly relevant for international cooperation has increased, from 12 % of topics in FP7 to over 27 % in the 2014-17 WPs.
2. Most international cooperation is implemented through participation in Horizon 2020 projects, but also through joint calls5 and twinning of projects funded by international partners to exchange knowledge and exploit synergies.
3. In addition, many WP topics contribute to the implementation of multilateral programmatic initiatives designed to tackle societal challenges with the participation of the EC, national and regional funding agencies.
4. Despite the increase in the number of topics flagged for international cooperation, the results from the first two years of Horizon 2020 show that the share of participations of entities from non-associated international partner countries in grant agreements for collaborative actions has fallen from 4.9 % under FP7 to just 2.4 % under Horizon 20206 .
5. Only 11.7 % of Horizon 2020 grant agreements include one or more partners from outside the EU Member States (MS) and the Horizon 2020 Associated Countries (AC), compared to 20.5 % under FP7.
6. The EU contribution to non-MS/AC entities has fallen from 2.0 % of the budget under FP7 to 0.7 % under Horizon 2020.
7. The total budget invested by entities from international, non-associated partner countries in cooperating in Horizon 2020 projects has fallen from €60 million to €29 million a year.

A study  into the contribution and complementarity of EU R&I cooperation projects with developing countries (2007-2013) concluded that DG Development and Cooperation and DG Research and Innovation  SWITCH Asia program in which up to 2013 86 projects have been funded  in the environmental sector including energy: the interface with the different Asian countires was limited. The Joint Africa EU Strategy, JAES, 8th Partnership on Science Information  Society and Space in which 20 grants of €750.000 have been financed to build capacity to manage R&I. The EHA is part of the CTCN network to ensure the visibility of Europe -made FCH technologies.

(Photo: Brazilian FC bus supported by Tuttitransporti and Petrobas)