The ISTOK-SOYUZ’ kick-off meeting was held at the Conference hall of The Russian Ministry of Communications on 18 March 2009, Moscow. The project ISTOK-SOYUZ has been initiated by partners from Europe, Russia and CIS and supported by the European Commission in order to identify new priorities for deeper strategic ICT cooperation between the European Union and Eastern Europe and Central Asia countries (EECA). For more information, see: http://www.rttn.ru/newsrttn/id_485?&lang=eng .

More than 20 representatives of The Russian Ministry of Communications, The Ministry of Education and Science, The European Commission Delegation in Russia, The Russian Academy of Sciences, The Russian Foundation for Basic Research, The National Contact Point for FP7 in Russia, Research organizations, Mass media of Russia gathered in Moscow for this meeting.

The objectives of the meeting were to promote the international project ISTOK-SOYUZ, to present its opportunities and benefits for Russian ICT community, and discuss project’ action plan for 2009 in Russia.

Representatives of the Russian Transfer Technology Network and the Institute for System Programming of the Russian Academy of Sciences made presentations on ISTOK-Ru project results (as background for ISTOK-SOYUZ activities) and ISTOK-SOYUZ prospectives.

Participants discussed proposals for international collaboration and identified some difficulties which can be overcome in the framework of the project.