EIG CONCERT-Japan

The European Interest Group (EIG) CONCERT-Japan is an international joint initiative to support and enhance science, technology and innovation (STI) cooperation between European countries and Japan. The EIG CONCERT-Japan is flexible and inclusive in nature, able to accommodate a range of forms of collaboration from unanimous concerted efforts to optional participation among its core members and other interested STI institutions.

The primary function of the EIG CONCERT-Japan is to collaboratively implement multilateral joint funding with the objective of enhancing the cooperation between European countries and Japan in various fields of STI. As far as it is relevant to that objective, the EIG CONCERT-Japan also aims to facilitate coordination between participating organisations in their activities relating to the programmes of the European Union and those undertaken within other international collaborative frameworks through the identification of common preferences, priorities and areas of mutual interest.

In continuation of a European Research Area Network (ERA-NET)

CONCERT-Japan began as an ERA-NET project funded by the 7th EU Framework Program for Research and Technical Development (FP7) from 2011 to 2014.

This FP7 project has had a high impact on the coherence and coordination of European collaboration and joint funding activities with Japan as a partner country. Several years of experience in multilateral calls through ERA-NETs have shown a high relevance of the schemes and the need for continuation. Therefore, the European Interest Group was founded as a flexible platform for communication and coordination among STI institutions in Europe and Japan. The collaboration begun in the FP7 project is now continuing independently of EU support, as an activity of the European Interest Group, hence the name “EIG CONCERT-Japan”.