This week’s episode is something I have been looking forward to a lot to share with you. And it is a rather exotic topic. During my formative years I went to New Zealand hitchhiking alone around the whole country. Hence, the country on the other side of the planet has always had a special place in my heart.

Recently New Zealand and the EU Commission signed an Association Agreement attaching New Zealand to the Horizon Europe Pillar II programme on same conditions as EU countries. Well, needless to say, I am thrilled and first thing on my mind was to somehow secure a New Zealand representative for a podcast episode covering this great agreement.

I am proud to say that I managed to get the Programme Manager for Horizon Europe John Creech from the New Zealand Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment into the virtual podcast studio to share with us all the background of the agreement, the history of collaboration between New Zealand and EU, a little bit about the New Zealand R&D landscape and not least how the country has built up their NCP structure dealing with all the regular NCP responsibilities, but also the ubiquitous issue of distance in time and space.

Time codes:

00:01:58 Introduction

00:07:29 Fly in on the New Zealand relationship to EU

00:10:35 A little bit of history

00:17:07 A photograph of New Zealand R&D&I landscape

00:34:09 New Zealand and EU - how is it organised

01:02:51 The New Zealand NCP function

01:26:34 The toughest challenge