Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen;

Last night the Norwegian Minister of Agriculture, Mr. Lars Sponheim, welcomed you all to this workshop at Staur.

On behalf of the planning group I would like to say that we are very pleased to see that so many distinguished representatives from research institutions, Industry and other official representatives find time to participate at this Workshop at Staur.

It is my sincere hope that this workshop will lead to interesting discussions and make a basis for further development and organized cooperation between research communities in Norway and USA.

I am not going to repeat Minister Sponheims welcome address, but I just want to mention again shortly some of the main conclusions drawn at the collaborative networking seminar in Minneapolis last year, which I also had the pleasure of attending.

The Minneapolis seminar was successful in identifying specific recommendations for collaboration in research, education and policy-making, and the main issues were:

• Bringing politicians, academics, businesses, and farmers together to propose solutions
• Pursuing joint industrial-academic ventures
• Developing cross-country, cross-institutional, virtual graduate schools for bio-energy and agricultural education and research
• Establishing bi-lateral research agreements
• Making recommendations for policy-making in both countries

Even though no priorities were given to the numerous areas of research which were listed in the conference proceedings, the Agricultural University of Norway and the Norwegian working group jointly noted that issues related to ” Bioenergy and new biobased products” and ” Livestock security” could be considered to be most important.

The main objective of this workshop is to further specify areas and forms of cooperation, and go deeper into closely selected issues.

The planning group has chosen to arrange a workshop with only a limited number of participants to be able to discuss these selected numbers of projects in a proper way. Hopefully this workshop will result in some concrete collaborative projects.

Strategy for increased research and technology corporation with North America

The Norwegian Government has stated that Norway shall be in the forefront in some prioritized areas of research and technology.

In order to achieve this, we need to be an active player on the international research and technology arena.

Our participation in this arena has to be based on national strengths in research and technology. Such strengths are both an entry-ticket into international co-operation, and a pre-requisite for being able to make use of new knowledge.

In Norwegian research policy there is a greater focus on basic research and the creation of a framework for innovation and knowledge-based industrial development.

The internalization of Norwegian research through cooperation and competition at the international level is crucial in order to enable Norwegian researchers to meet high quality standards and gain acceptance as interesting partners for top international research institutions.

As earlier mentioned, about 99 percent of the world’s research and technology development takes place outside Norway . Special efforts have been concentrated on cooperation within the EU and the Nordic countries. We have a large scale of cooperation in Europe within the EU’s research programmes.

North America is a region of great economic, scientific and political significance to Norway. The strong position of the US has made this country a standard for other countries and regions. The Norwegian government wants to strengthen our connections with American scientists, including education of new scientists and student exchange programs.

We have a long history for co-operation between scientists from Norwegian and US within a number of fields.

In addition bilateral agreements between Universities in Norway and in the US and Canada has been developed.

The language barrier is nearly non-existing, and we share much of the same cultural base and history.

In October 2001, the Norwegian Government adopted a Strategy Document entitled “ Strong Bonds across the Atlantic” to strengthen cooperation in a variety of areas between Norway and the US.

The government has started working on a separate strategy for research and technological corporation with Northern America. This strategy shall, among several goals, enhance:

• A long term and increased research corporation with US and Canada
• Increased quality with Norwegian research
• A reinforced research co-operation with US and Canada will increase research based innovation.

Quality is a main objective, and the government sees the need to strengthen our basic research.

We would like to be in front professionally in selected fields and we want to give priority to groups on several basic research areas. The government would like to increase both research co-operation within basic research, and co-operation to increase innovation and mobility. Another profiled and practical tool that has been discussed, would be to establish dedicated learning chairs as a further transatlantic collaboration with US.

Another important goal is to promote an increased partnership between Norwegian and American Industry.

The Strategy for Norwegian research- and technology co-operation with Northern America will be finished this autumn, and we hope it will serve as a trigger for increased economic commitment toward the US.

In addition an initiative was taken in 2003 to form a bilateral research agreement between Norway and the US. This agreement will probably be negotiated and signed during 2004. This agreement will, when signed, ease new possibilities for increased transatlantic collaboration.

In the future the government wants to focus on areas where our two countries have the greatest potential for good partnership. The seminar in Minneapolis was successful in identifying specific recommendations for collaboration in research, education and policy-making.

These recommendations have been very useful for the Norwegian Government in our work to develop The Strategy for improved and reinforced co-operation in a variety of areas between Norway and the USA in the agricultural field.

This workshop will hopefully come up with ideas on what the concrete themes and focus point for further co-operation should be and also what kind of tools and forms of co-operation which should be developed.

It is a goal in itself to establish a co-operation between researchers, but it is also a goal to establish co-operation between industry and research. I hope that this event will contribute to both these goals.

Thank You for Your attention