Steinbeis 2i GmbH coordinates an EU-funded project aimed at strengthening the collaboration between Europe and China in the field of health
The EU and China have been cultivating a collaboration in the fields of research and innovation for a number of years based on the well-established EU-China Science and Technology Cooperation Agreement. Since 2017, Steinbeis 2i GmbH (S2i) has been actively involved in the ENRICH in China project (European Network of Research and Innovation Centres and Hubs in China) to establish a European research and innovation centre in Beijing and Chengdu. Over the past two years, S2i has also organised a series of business trips and training courses for European and Chinese researchers and business leaders. Since January 2019, S2i has been focusing on another area of interest: collaboration in the field of health.
The S2i team is the coordinator of the EU-funded project SENET, which aims to not only improve the framework conditions for collaborative research and innovation projects in general but also to promote open research on an equal footing – to the benefit of Europe and China. The overarching goal of SENET is thus to establish a networking and knowledge hub between the EU and China in order to work together to identify common challenges faced in the field of health, to improve the framework conditions affecting joint research initiatives, and to implement new projects in the field of health research and innovation. SENET is being funded through Horizon 2020, the European Union’s framework programme for research and innovation, and receives funding from January 2019 until June 2021. The project partners come from China, Germany, France, Portugal, and Spain.
In April 2019, the S2i team working on the SENET project, Hicham Abghay and Melanie Baur, travelled to Beijing and Wuxi as part of an ENRICH in China delegation trip together with 18 representatives from various EU member states and associated countries. The programme included visits to the Capital Medical University and the Biomedicine Science Park in Beijing as well as the Wuxi National Life Science Park, a technology park with over 100 business enterprises working in the field of healthcare and pharmaceuticals. During the visit, the S2i experts had meetings with companies and presented the SENET project. In addition, Abghay and Baur from S2i also met with representatives from Tsinghua University in Beijing to discuss further collaboration opportunities.
Hicham Abghay (S2i) presenting the project SENET at the Wuxi (Mashan) Sino-European Healthcare Cooperation workshop in Wuxi on April 12, 2019
Furthermore, the S2i team participated at the Taihu Life Science and Healthcare Forum at the Wuxi International Expo Centre, which was attended by around 2.000 people. During this part of the visit, they took part in a workshop and had the opportunity to present and discuss SENET’s activities to an international audience of around 120 delegates. Following the trip with the delegation, the SENET kick-off meeting took place at the Technology and Innovation Center in Shanghai. In addition to discussing the objectives of SENET, meetings were held with representatives of the Enterprise Europe Network, the Shanghai Innovation Center, and Invest Shanghai.
Contact
Hicham Abghay (author)
Senior Project Manager Medizintechnologien
Steinbeis 2i GmbH (Stuttgart)
https://senet-hub.eu/