education for the development of society. Today, Denmark
invests more than 8% of GDP in education – much more
than the OECD-average of 6%.
Science and Technology collaboration to meet global
competition
Most of the international collaboration in science and
technology simply happens when scientists meet and
interact with their colleagues at conferences or write
publications together. The nature of scientific research
has in this sense always been international in outlook and
lead to collaboration with fellow researchers from other
countries. It is only recently that collaboration in areas like
Science, Technology and Innovation (STI) was developed
into a new foreign policy instrument. For Denmark, this
development began in 2006 with the creation of Innovation
Centres in a partnership between the Danish Ministry of
Foreign Affairs and the Danish Ministry of Higher Education
and Science. In 2017, Denmark also became the first and so
far only country in the world to appoint a Tech Ambassador.
A new STI-partnership with India
Within the last few years, Denmark and India have
established STI-partnership in a number of areas at both
government and institutional levels.
Hon’ble Indian Minister of Science and Technology, Dr.
Harsh Vardhan and Hon’ble Danish Minister for Ministry
of Higher Education and Science, Tommy Ahlers signed a
new government agreement between India and Denmark
in May 2018. This agreement is expected to bring bilateral
cooperation within research, technology and innovation to a
new level making cross collaboration easier for Indian and
Danish institutions, authorities and private companies.
Today there are eight Danish Innovation Centers around
the world – all located in some of the most powerful
global economies and STI nations like US, China, Germany
and Korea as well as India. Denmark wants to establish,
maintain and develop links with these countries.
The Innovation Centers cover the whole value chain from
basic research to commercialization and export. They act
as facilitators that assist Danish companies and public
institutions such as universities or research organizations
in promoting themselves, their products, services
and technologies through collaborative activities and
matchmaking mainly in the pre-commercial phases. They
help establish, maintain and develop links and interaction
among stakeholders in the respective national research and
innovation systems. Moreover, they disseminate output and
outcomes from the basic and applied research activities that
are conducted at the national level and in collaboration with
other countries. The links and activities help strengthening
the competitiveness of Danish stakeholders at national,
institutional and business-level.
The centers also facilitate the globalization of Denmark’s
international STI-relations, which today are strongest with
the neighboring Nordic and European countries like United
Kingdom, Germany, Sweden and the Netherlands.
MoU on S&T Cooperation between India and Denmark signed by
Minister for Science & Technology, Dr. Harsh Vardhan and Minister
for Higher Education & Science, Mr. Tommy Ahlers on 22 May 2018
in Copenhagen
The new agreement is in line with the Danish Government’s
research and innovation strategy. An objective here is to
increase international collaboration to help develop and
build necessary capacity at the Danish research institutions
to be among the global elite.
A number of activities are initiated under the 3-year action
plan in the agreement. The most important of which is
the launch of a joint Indo-Danish funding call. Innovation
Fund Denmark together with the Indian government’s
Department of Science and Technology and Department of
Biotechnology is distributing INR 30 Cr. (DKK 30 million)
in the first call in 2018 with a view to further develop and
strengthen bilateral research and innovation projects in
the areas of Water and Renewable Energy. The prioritized
research and innovation areas are:
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