CHOICE: Strengthening China Collaboration on ICT research with Europe

1. CHOICE: Strengthening China Collaboration on ICT research with Europe Dr T J Owens Email: Thomas.Owens@brunel.ac.uk Coordinator of CHOICESenior Lecturer CommunicationsECE, School of Engineering and DesignBrunel UniversityUnited Kingdom

2. In the CHOICE project emphasis will be put on: • Identifying obstacles to reciprocity and encouraging a more balanced relationship with China based on reciprocity • especially supporting European nationals, companies and organisations willing to access Chinese research programmes; • Highlighting and showcasing both EU and Chinese excellence in ICT R&D; • StrengtheningEU-China industrial ICT R&D cooperation, • also with the view of preparing the ground for new upcoming rules governing EU-China ICT R&D cooperation under Horizon 2020 (H2020).

3. The key distinguishing features of the CHOICE project are that it will 1): • Position itself as a strategic forum on EU China science and technology cooperation in ICT. • Engage with the Chinese within the framework they have adopted for managing their technological development. • This framework plays careful attention to regulatory issues and ensures subsequent developments are policies driven. • Focus on cooperation in a context of policies driven research. • Focus dialogues towards standardization and regulatory initiatives that have the potential for initiating economic sustainable cooperation with China outside of European funded research programmes.

4. The key distinguishing features of the CHOICE project are that it will 2): • Bridge towards H2020 emphasizing opportunities in China for the exploitation of H2020 and in particular its’ potential for contributing to increasing Chinese domestic demand. • Deliver a roadmap which will provide a sustainability strategy for EU-China research cooperation beyond FP7. • Deliver an action plan, which will provide a sustainability strategy for EU-China research cooperationoutside of European funded research programmes.

5. CHOICE Consortium

6. Consortium track record • Sigma: OpenChina–ICT, CHINACOOP • SPI: ChinaACCESS4EU, DRAGON-STAR, CHINAFRONTIER • Brunel: EU ICT SSA PARTAKE Assisting Chinese Participation in Converging Systems (INSTINCT, IBE with Brazil) • CATR: OpenChina–ICT, SPICE • TORCH: CHINAFRONTIER • is mandated by the Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology • brings hands-on information on Chinese national research programmes and policies • EUPIC: ChinaACCESS4EU • Coordinates the EEN-West China” network, covering ten provinces including Sichuan, Chongqing, Yunnan, Guizhou, Xinjiang, Tibet, Qinghai, Gansu, Ningxia, and Shaanxi. • Brings hands-on information on Chinese regional policies and how they interface with national policies

7. Past EU-China cooperation - lessons learnt • The Chinese have a framework for managing their technological development. • this pays careful attention to regulatory issues and ensures subsequent developments are policies driven: Essentially technologies in China are developed along a 5 year plan with a strong emphasis on standardisation. • The starting point for cooperation with the Chinese is dialogue: • In 2003, the EU and China launched a comprehensive strategic partnership, upgraded in 2010 and in 2012, with the launch of the High Level People-to-People Dialogue. • The EU and China established over 50 sectorial dialogues. • Chinese have been major participants in FP7: There has been much concern about a (perceived?) lack of reciprocity in the funding of EU Chinese collaborative research in ICT.

8. Challenges of current EU-China cooperation in ICT • Consider the Dialogue on Information Technology, Telecommunications and Informatisation with the Chinese Ministry for Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) • The need for more rapid adoption of IPv6 is closely tied to the need for greater provision of broadband and dependent to a large extent on policies. • Consider the role of The EU-China Broadband Policy Expert Group. It aims to : • Prepare input to the development and implementation of a national and regional broadband rollout strategy; • Provide specific suggestions for EU-China expert, industry and policy cooperation on broadband deployment, especially for disadvantaged groups and regions; • Establish and improve expert networks to tackle existing and future challenges.

9. Expected outputs of current EU-China cooperation in ICT • The expected results are for Chinese decision-makers to be better equipped for developing a broadband strategy to tackle the existing and future challenges posed by broadband • and for EU stakeholders to get additional input on new ways of providing universal services and improved relations with Chinese stakeholders. • The activity features two joint studies and two meetings of experts on key topics such as gap analysis, policy framework development, stakeholder integration, the role of government, the EU approach and instruments, financing and regulatory frameworks.

10. Requirements of current EU-China cooperation in ICT • Effective expert cooperation needs a framework through which appropriate experts can be identified, their costs covered in a transparent way, and within which the experts wish to be active. • This last point requires that the framework is clearly beneficial to the experts’ core business. • One way of achieving this is through collaborative research. However, given the challenges of collaboration: • such frameworks may be more effective in the context of two parallel cooperative Chinese and EU research projects rather than in one collaborative project.

11. How does China perceive the future cooperation?China’s R&D priorities for 2006-2020 include: • Enabling information technology and large application software for the services sector; • Major next-generation internet technologies and services; • High performance, dependable computers; • Sensor networks and intelligent information processing; • Digital media content platforms; • High definition large flat-panel displays; • Core application-oriented information security; • Intelligent sensing technology; • Ad hoc network technology; • Virtual reality technology.

12. How can future research cooperation in the priority areas be achieved?? It does not necessarily require funded projects with both Chinese and EU partners. One possible route is: • Identify common areas where a linked approach to policies can be of benefit. Examples could include Smart Cities applications such as VANET’s. • Ensure that unnecessary duplication of research effort in support of the above between China and the EU is avoided • Make sure in addressing major challenges that money is not wasted by one side attempting approaches that the other has learned the hard way do not work • By each side learning from the others experience to improve the effectiveness of its own programmes

13. Beyond H2020 • There needs to be more balance between research and dialogues, to be achieved in part by focusing on determining where research coordination (cooperation) is appropriate and where research collaboration (joint working) is required. • The subtlest challenge lies in working to establish a framework for identifying common challenges faced by the EU and China in policies development that can be more effectively, and/or efficiently addressed by cooperation and/or collaboration in research than by the China and the EU addressing them independently.

14. A way forward • A natural starting point for this process is to identify existing joint and/or parallel policies involving ICT between the EU and China and determining if cooperative and/or collaborative ICT research could usefully support them. • Closely related to this is where there is a mutual desire to establish a new joint policy determining if research is necessary to realisesuch a policy. THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION