Canada is one of the European Union’s oldest and closest partners. What started out in the 1950s as a purely economic relationship has evolved over the years into closer cooperation. The EU and Canada have cooperated on science and technology research since 1976, and both parties entered into an Agreement for Scientific and Technical Cooperation in 1996 and expanded and amended in 1998. This Agreement established a formal basis for research cooperation, paving the way for Canadians and Europeans to participate in one another's research programs. Cooperation occurs on a self-funded basis (where Canadians are supported by Canadians funds, and Europeans through European funds).

Canada has a range of research support programs at federal and provincial levels, and many of these support the international aspects of research projects and international exchanges of research personnel. In addition, there are a few specific funding sources earmarked for international research and development collaboration.

There were at least 75 Canada-Europe collaborative S&T projects under the EU’s Fifth Framework Programme (1998-2002), with the active involvement of about 80 Canadian researchers, as well as several hundred EU researchers. Among those 75 projects 28 concerned the field of IST. 38 Canadian organizations participated in the FP5-IST programme with a majority of organizations from the public sector (75%).

In addition to the cooperation between Canada and Europe, there are two active bilateral agreements on science and technology between Canada and specific EU Member States (Canada-France, Canada-Germany), and a large number of MoUs involving governmental institutions, universities, research centers, private foundations or the private sector. Despite these successes, it is widely recognized that a more systematic approach for partnering and connecting Canadian and European researchers would benefit both parties.

• The lack of a "single-window" to facilitate access to information on R&D funding and other relevant information. Researchers are far from the sources of information on the various funding schemes, research work programmes, and proposal process.

• Researchers are far from the decision process that is used on their counterpart continent. Therefore it is difficult for them to have their topics of interest represented in the topics addressed by the funding agencies or the participating institutions.

• By their nature, funding sources are not synchronized between the two sides of the Atlantic Ocean. In addition there is not necessarily an "automatic" matching of funding when one party is funded.

• A physical distance and a time lag render initial contacts difficult when researchers want to create new trans-Atlantic teams.

• Typically, researchers concentrate on research issues and finding potential partners and managing the logistics of their research might not be of primary importance for them. They would therefore greatly benefit from having this process done by someone else, such as IST-EC 2.