EAST –HORIZON project, a coordination and support action funded under Horizon 2020 came to its end with a final conference held on the 13^th  & 14^th  of July 2016 in Chisinau, Moldova.

The Final Conference was attended by more than 100 participants representing leading commercial, government and research organisations from the EU and the entire Eastern Europe and Central Asia region, who had the opportunity to share knowledge and experiences, lessons learnt and good practices of EU-funded research projects and to network amongst them to explore collaboration opportunities.

The conference focused on two ICT areas of high potential for EU-EECA collaboration, namely Big Data, Software and Services and Interactive Content, Media and Creative industries.

The project “EAST-HORIZON: Fostering Dialogue and Cooperation between the EU and EECA in the Horizon 2020 perspective” aimed at assisting  ICT R&D policy dialogue between Eastern Europe and Central Asia (EECA) partner countries and the European Commission, paving the path for EU-EECA successful strategic partnerships.

Its goal was to inspire ideas and influence policies to help the Dialogue between the EU and the EECA, which will lead to the best possible benefits for both sides and in parallel support organisations from both sides to prepare successful proposals for joint projects in collaborative ICT R&D, within the Horizon 2020 and in national EU/EECA ICT R&D programmes.

During the course of the project, important activities were implement towards this direction, including  among others, the implementation of key reports on the region’s innovation policies and international cooperation status, creation of ETP communities of interest, training courses on Horizon 2020, networking and matchmaking events.