As Ministerial Commissioner for Science Diplomacy Gábor Pörzse told to the Hungarian News Agency this Tuesday, members of the Visegrad Group and Japan signed a cooperation agreement on research and development in Bratislava the very same day; the countries are promoting joint scientific projects.

The Commissioner reminded that last June in Warsaw, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán confirmed at the meeting of the Prime Ministers of the Visegrad Countries (V4 – Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia) and Japan that a priority area in the V4-Japan cooperation is research and development. In this spirit was the cooperation agreement signed on Tuesday, which is about – as the Commissioner put it – the establishment of a common basis for proposals regarding researchers of the countries.

As Gábor Pörzse explained, within the meaning of the agreement worked out by the staff of the International Visegrad Fund and the Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST), Japan contributes for three years with EUR 130,000 and the Visegrad Fund with EUR 100,000 to the budget of the tender programme (which fees are approximately 40 million and 31 million respectively in HUF). As a result, the tender programme may start during this fall, which allows for scientists from the V4 member states and Japan to conduct joint research projects, said the Commissioner. He added that the proposals will be evaluated and ranked by an international jury.

As he stressed, the aim of the programme on the long run is to ensure closer cooperation between the countries, since scientists have to submit proposals together.

The Commissioner said that granted scientific research projects will supposedly start in April 2015. He also said that the Hungarian part of the programme is funded by the Hungarian National Scientific Research Fund.

(MTI)