European Union - Latin America Scientific cooperation in the 90's

This volume presents an overview of the results of almost a decade of continuous support from the European Community to cooperation between EU scientists and their Latin American counterparts. In addition it gives full details ofthe teams involved and how to contact them.
It gives me great satisfaction to present this overview of the results of almost a decade of continuous support from the European Community to cooperation between our scientists and their Latin American counterparts. In addition, this publication provides researchers with a valuable source of information on the projects supported, their scope, objectives, and results, and gives full details of the teams involved and how to contact
them.
The reader will find in the pages that follow the practical results of the Community's policy on scientific cooperation with the Latin American region. As in the case of other developing regions, Community policy has sought to harmonise a contribution to the region's socio-economic progress with our own scientific interests.
Implementation of this policy has allowed Community scientists to gain access to localities displaying particular environmental, agricultural, ecological and public health characteristics, and to undertake their research in these areas. As a counterbalance, we believe that Latin American researchers have derived great benefit from interaction with their European peers. Given their own scientific quality, this sharing of experience
places local teams in a privileged position from which to contribute to finding sciencebased solutions to problems faced by their communities.
It is precisely with the aim of tackling these problems effectively that, after extensive dialogue with the scientific authorities and communities of the region, the Commission selected areas on which to target cooperation. Agriculture and agroindustry, health and environmental issues were considered the most important priorities, as the reader will be able to see in the body of this publication. However, in order to capitalize on the human potential available, research in other relevant fields such as earth sciences, materials and different branches of engineering was also supported when resources permitted.