At the invitation of Italy’s Agenzia per la Promozione della Ricerca Europea (APRE), a delegation of China Science and Technology Exchange Center (CSTEC) led by Party Secretary Mao Jianjun attended the Dragon-Star Plus Project Coordination Meeting organized by APRE in Rome from September 4 to 8, 2017. During the meeting, the two sides reviewed the experience of their cooperation and set clear direction for better cooperation between Chinese and Italian research circles in the future.

The two sides summed up their experience of cooperation in the Dragon-Star and Dragon Star Plus projects under the EU Science and Technology Program since they signed a Memorandum of Understanding on Cooperation in 2008 and agreed to promote the existing mature models of cooperation, such as mutual personnel visits, project cooperation and jointly holding EU Science and Technology Program promotion events. The two sides also agreed to renew their Memorandum of Understanding on Cooperation during the APRE director’s upcoming visit to China.

Building on that, the two sides held discussions on further expanding the scope of bilateral cooperation through leveraging their respective science and technology resources networks to launch the China-Italy Innovation Partnership Action in 2018, thus efficiently connecting innovation resources and personnel and providing high-quality services to the research circles of both countries. In addition, in this Project Coordination Meeting, the two sides also reached consensus on the follow-up conclusion work of the Dragon-Star Plus Project.

The visit consolidated and deepened cooperation between CSTEC and APRE, opened a new chapter of joint efforts for the two sides to push forward China-Italy cooperation in science, technology and innovation, and became a new highlight of China-Italy cooperation in science and technology services.