The Lead Agency instrument has in the past years since its development and endorsement by the Science Europe established itself as a very efficient scheme of trans-border collaboration with reduced bureaucracy and high quality of cooperation.

The Lead Agency instrument pursues several main goals:

• For the countries: Coordination of research efforts
• For the RFOs : Increase in output of research funding and simplification of administrative procedures
• For the researchers: Facilitation of international cooperation with complementary teams using a simple application procedure for joint research projects

The instrument is targeted towards bilateral research projects which promise to yield an increased scientific added-value that could not be achieved if the respective project parts were carried out separately.

Currently the Lead Agency instrument is being used by at least 10 European research funding organisations, with partners in and outside of Europe. The Slovenian Research Agency (ARRS) already cooperates with the Austrian FWF, the Belgian FWO and the Hungarian OTKA and, based on the positive outcomes, aims at widening this form of international cooperation within and outside of Europe.

More information can be found in the Science Europe Practical Guide to Three Approaches to Cross-border Collaboration.