President of the Australian Academy of Science, Professor Chennupati Jagadish AC, has welcomed Minister for Science the Hon Senator Tim Ayres decision to start exploratory talks with the European Commission on Australia's possible association to Horizon Europe.
Valued at over $A170 billion (€95 billion), Horizon Europe is the world's largest funding program for research and innovation.
Professor Jagadish said Australia's association with Horizon Europe would assist in mitigating current geopolitical risk in Australia's scientific enterprise and deliver scientific and economic benefits to Australia.
"The global challenges we are facing require global solutions, requiring researchers and countries to work together. International scientific collaboration is a matter of strategic national interest and something Australia cannot do without," Professor Jagadish said.
"Australia collaborates with individual European countries, but association to Horizon Europe presents an opportunity for strategic, scaled collaboration that will have a multiplier effect on research resources and scientific effort."
Deepening Australia's research and industry relationship with European countries was the focus of an event hosted by the Academy in July that was attended by Ms Signe Ratso, the European Commission's chief negotiator for association to Horizon Europe.
The Academy presented data on Australia's research collaborations in areas aligned to three of the Australian Government's Future Made in Australia priorities: green metals, low-carbon liquid fuels, and clean energy manufacturing.
The analysis revealed a consistent pattern of strong collaborations with Europe across most of the fields, emphasising the EU as a critical research partner to advance Australia's interests.
It also highlighted a strong track record of research collaboration with individual European nations in these priority areas, which could be leveraged via association to Horizon Europe.
"If this is the trend across individual countries, when aggregated, we would expect amplified capability and benefit for Australia via the Horizon Europe program," Professor Jagadish said.
