The European Commission has just put more funding into joint Euro-Latin American reserach. The first regional research and education network for Latin America (ALICE) was created through DANTE (Delivery of Advanced Network Technology to Europe), an organization supported by European NRENs (national research and education networks) and the European Commission, in order to connect researchers across the continent. ALICE’s success encouraged the creation of a more global programme named RedCLARA, through which the Latin American research community can access and contribute to global research projects from their country.

RedCLARA connects 14 countries across Central and South America, allowing 738 universities and research institutes to communicate with their European and global peers directly. RedCLARA has given scientists and researchers the means to develop working relationships with regional and foreign partners.

With an initial EU finding of 10 million Euro, the project was planned to end last March. But given the programme’s achievements, the Commission decided to extend the funding until March 2008. RedCLARA network has become a reference model to build research communities among European partners and other geographical regions.