 Background Information
"Asia is a crucial partner for the EU (European Union),
whether economically, politically or culturally".
Thus begins the overview of the section of the European Commission's web portal dedicated to the EU's relations with Asia. This section is developed by the Directorate General External Relations of the European Commission and provides a large amount of information on past and present initiatives to strengthen relations between the EU and Asian countries.
These initiatives have resulted in particular in an important development, in the past years, of S&T cooperation between European and Asian organisations in the ICT area, namely in the framework of EU-funded programmes. Under the FP6 IST programme, Asia has thus become the first region, in terms of participation of third country organisations (see graph below). It is expected that the participation of Asian organisations in the FP7 ICT Theme will be also very high.
Detailed information on FP6 and FP7 R&D projects, and in particular on projects, in the ICT field, with the participation of Asian organisations, can be found on the CORDIS website.
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