Director General for Research and Innovation Jean-Eric Paquet visited the Czech Republic

Prague and Dolní Břežany, 25th October 2018 – Director General for Research and Innovation of the European Commission Jean-Eric Paquet officially visited for the very first time the Czech Republic. His programme comprised of participating in the CZEDER conference, on-site-visits to ELI Beamlines and HiLASE research infrastructures and attending the roundtable debate on preparation of the 9th EU Framework Programme for Research and Innovation “Horizon Europe” (2021-2027).

At the beginning of his visit to the Czech Republic, Director General Paquet met with Acting Deputy Minister for Higher Education, Science and Research Pavel Doleček and Deputy Minister for EU and Operational Programmes Václav Velčovský to discuss involvement of the Czech Republic in the EU Framework Programmes for Research, Development and Innovation.

Afterwards, Director General Paquet made intervention at the 16th Czech Days for European Research (“CZEDER” conference), which is annual event held under the auspices of the Technology Centre of the Czech Academy of Sciences in close cooperation with the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports to debate most up-to-date issues of European research, development and innovation policy.

In the afternoon, the European Commission’s delegation moved to the municipality of Dolní Břežany near Prague, where on-site-visits to ELI Beamlines and HiLASE were organised. The commissioning of ELI Beamlines and establishment of the European Research Infrastructure Consortium ELI-ERIC were discussed with representatives of the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports and the Czech Academy of Sciences on this occasion.

Later on, debate on collaboration between HiLASE, situated just next to ELI Beamlines, and UK Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC), namely the Central Laser Facility (CLF), was subject to debate since HiLASE and STFC-CLF jointly implement the prestigious “Teaming” project, funded under the EU Framework Programme for Research and Innovation Horizon 2020 (2014-2020) and co-funded by the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports from the Operational Programme Research, Development and Education (OP VVV).

At the end of the day, Director General Jean-Eric Paquet participated in a roundtable with stakeholders responsible for policy-making and financing of research, development and innovation from the public funds of the Czech Republic. The main theme of the roundtable was preparation of the next 9th EU Framework Programme for Research and Innovation Horizon Europe (2021–2027).