The parties agreed that cooperation in joint projects makes innovation efforts more efficient. Science and technology cooperation between the two countries has become intensive since 2002. Latest decision of the assigned joint committee was to support 15 proposals out of 41 entries on its last November meeting, where it was also decided to announce a joint call for proposals again in the first half of 2016. Since both parties intend to increase involvement in multilateral programmes, first of all those by the EU, they would prefer the ones preparing for European projects when it comes to bilateral actions. Good examples are the EUREKA and EUROSTARS programmes supporting applied research of the industry as well as innovative enterprises, in which 12 Hungarian-Slovak projects were realised successfully within the last few years and further two proposals are expected to be applied by the end of this year.

Another significant forum of the RDI partnership between Hungary and Slovakia is the cooperation of the Visegrad countries (V4). The Slovak presidency of the V4 until this June, paid particular attention to pursuing initiations launched by the earlier Hungarian presidency, by organising specialised working teams as well as events to promote innovation capacities and start-up businesses of the member states. Due to the joint efforts, a letter of intent was signed by the V4 members as of 12 October, to continue their innovative cooperation. The success of cooperation between the V4 and Japan also proves that entries become more effective, if the partners apply jointly, in well-focused projects, for the funds offered by the Horizon 2020 framework programme. For an extended concept of this cooperation, the Ambassador proposed further discussions, involving the representatives of the Visegrad Fund and the V4 countries.

József Pálinkás pointed out the significance of the cooperation between the enterprises and the universities and other research institutes engaged in applied research. The parties agreed that in the future they should urge to support R&D cooperation in such ways which comply with the strategic priorities of both countries and the results of which can be mutually exploited.

József Pálinkás, President (NRDIO)	Rastislav Káčer, Ambassador of Slovakia to Budapest
Rastislav Káčer, Ambassador of Slovakia and Milán Kurucz Counsellor