Rafael Rodríguez- Clemente and Juan Miguel González- Aranda

1. Euro-Mediterranean Scientific Cooperation Frame: Facts, Obstacles and Solutions based on Knowledge Management and ICT Systems. Rafael Rodríguez- Clemente and Juan Miguel González- Aranda Estación Biológica de Doñana. Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC). Seville ( Spain) Institut Pierre Werner, Luxembourg, 21-22 April 2008

2. BASIC CONCEPTS • Science and technological development are at the heart of the society development and represent the basic element of the new paradigm of the Knowledge Society. • The impact of the human activity in the environment and, even, in the societal design (i.e. longer life time) makes unavoidable the use of the scientific knowledge for the society rulers as a basic tool of governance and sustainable development. • International Scientific Cooperation in Science and Technology is almost a redundancy, as science is always the product of collaboration. • This collaboration is not limited by political, ideological or territorial barriers, they are not primarily driven by political will, but by the personal recognition of somebody else excellence in the common scientific subject; in this sense, it is a very good example of cooperation driven by common interest. • Any sounded political design of scientific development must stimulate the scientific cooperation, respecting the basic motivation of the protagonists, but creating mechanism to make the knowledge created profitable for the society of

3. The Euro-Mediterranean scientific cooperation has two core components: bilateral cooperation activities between member countries and MPCs, and multilateral actions mostly funded by the European Union through various means: the MEDA programme, created as a result of the Barcelona Declaration, and the EU Framework Programme (FP) for Research. • But the increasing complexity of the handling of the cooperation instruments is a real threat for the progress of these desirable cooperation.

4. OBSTACLES • The main obstacle for a structured scientific cooperation lies in the lack of “symmetry” between the cooperating systems. • By “symmetrical systems” we understand a set of management procedures of both systems that are known and accepted by each other. • The cooperation system is complex, and includes, besides the scientific recognition and common interests, which are basic requirement, recognition of the administrative procedures. • It worth mention that the existence of such asymmetries results in the creation of expensive but sometimes necessary intermediate business activities by some private consulting companies due to the slow pace of public administrations to get familiar with the legal, administrative and financial management procedures of the complex European projects.

6. HANDLING KNOWLEDGE • In spite of the hurdles, knowledge and innovations are shared quickly across organizational, cultural and national boundaries through informal relationships, which are usually reflected into the form of many publications on specific common interest topics. These relationships are based on the concepts of “reciprocity” in knowledge sharing. • These collaborations start from the establishment of spontaneous relationships between both sides of the Mediterranean Area in the form of small-sized Communities of Interest (CoI) • These relationships involved groups of individuals, scientists, technicians, economists, industrialists, PhD students,… where knowledge sharing occurs among them as they engage in debate and discussion of each other’s ideas and results, and through collaboration on joint research projects, thus leading to the establishment of the first Communities of Practice

7. THE COMMUNITY OF PRACTICE (CoP) • According to the theoretical background, a CoP is combination of three structural elements: • the DOMAIN of knowledge, which defines the area of shared inquiry and the set of issues discussed in the community • the COMMUNITY, its members, the social fabric, their motivation, and interactions • and the PRACTICE, the set of interacting processes, frameworks, ideas, tools, information, styles, language, stories and documents that the community members share

8. KNOWKLEDGE MANAGEMENT • The role of Knowledge Management (KM) in these initially informal social networks has changed due to the new paradigms associated to the Information Society Technologies (IST) and how the connection with the new Knowledge-Based Economy also affects the EU-MED cooperation itself. • Today, ICT tools and KM methodologies creates a scenario where these social networks are mainly structured around either CoI or CoP. • These social networks are themselves reinforced and nurtured by ICT/KM through the provision of coordination and management mechanisms. Eventually, these networks may increase in size and evolve towards the well-known as Formal Electronic Networks of Practice NoP.

9. JUMPING ABOVE THE HURDLES • The extension of these instruments, created by the scientific community, to lawyers, administrators and financial officers, could provide the best mechanism to improve the quality of the cooperation and tackle the important issue of time management in organising and fostering Euro-Mediterranean scientific cooperation.

10. RECOMENDATIONS • There is a need to increase the intensity of cooperation in S&T in the Euro-Mediterranean Area, making efficient use of the tools and mechanisms already established to use knowledge as the source of a more competitive, developed and sustainable society in both side of the Mediterranean Sea. • Management models must be adapted to research while avoiding subordination to procedures and time use that mark ordinary public administrations in the Euro-Mediterranean Area. The disconnection between management and function has caused serious problems in the development of international collaboration processes. • Management and dissemination of knowledge obtained by Communities of Practice (CoP) should be undertaken using specific methods and techniques, with a communication strategy geared toward agents involved at educational, research and industrial activity level, as well as toward the administrations and political decision-makers. • All of the above justifies the need to support the design, implementation and maintenance of ICT tools that enable the strengthening and emergence of new cooperation networks in research, but also in administrative, financial and legal systems. • The FP7 INCO-Net Project MIRA, aimed at establishing coordination platforms to foster the EU-MPC scientific and technical cooperation, is using a Knowledge Management System of this type.

11. THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION! http://www.miraproject.eu