http://www.istok-soyuz.eu/index.php/component/content/article/37-news/74-istok-soyuz-announces-internal-call-for-proposals

According to ISTOK-Ru (www.istok-ru.eu) project’s findings there are important barriers relevant to the promotion of FP7 - ICT in Russia, which is also typical for other EECA countries such as:
- Difficulties for the non-EU partners in understanding calls’ requirements,
- Willingness of the Russian partners to lead the technical part and disagreement of EU coordinators on this issue,
- Wrong approaches to partner search (push of the technology idea instead of promoting competences…)
However, in spite of these barriers, the strong potential for ICT R&D collaboration between organisations in the targeted EECA countries and EU partners is regularly confirmed. To leverage this potential:
- benefits of collaboration with European partners needs to be widely communicated,
- information about collaboration opportunities needs to be widely diffused,
- lessons learnt and potential problems – such as “missing the topic of the call” - need to be known,
- ICT specialists still hesitant “to enter into a FP7-ICT project” need to be identified and motivated,
- customized hands-on support for ICT R&D teams in the targeted countries need to be intensified,
- success stories and partnerships need to be increased.
To address these needs, the ISTOK-SOYUZ team launched the call for proposals in Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Armenia, and Kazakhstan. The aim of the ISTOK-SOYUZ internal call for proposal is to select at least 15 organizations with strongest ICT R&D collaboration potential from the five targeted countries of EECA, and to provide them with personalized support in order to increase number of ICT partnerships under FP7.