INCONET-GCC2's overall goal is to support the institutional bi-regional policy dialogue in Science, Technology and Innovation, to strengthen the bi-regional cooperation between research and innovation actors, especially in the context of the upcoming Horizon 2020 programme and finally to monitor progress in the bi-regional STI cooperation.INCONET-GCC2 builds on the results of previous cooperation activities with the Arab Gulf Countries (INCONET-GCC 1st phase, www.icnonet-gcc.eu) while it focuses on selected societal challenges of mutual interest as identified during the previous collaboration. INCONET-GCC2 explores now to achieve win-win across national, multidisciplinary and cross-sectoral approaches can be spurred in response to these issues while also realising and underpinning new pathbreaking kinds of capacity-building and organising clustering activities around the selected research priorities. Specifically: (1) Implement a series of analyses feeding the policy dialogue and increasing its efficiency, monitoring INCONET-GCC2’s own activities, with particular emphasis on their sustainability, and implementing coherent dissemination activities in order to increase its visibility and impact; (2) Built of best practices towards the future in order to promote joint research though clustering activities within the selected societal challenges and organise thematic workshops in Health, Energy, Innovation and Security and ICT, Food towards EU-GCC Joint Call for proposals; (3) Enhance capacity building through the delivery of the facilitation of researcher mobility, summer schools, the support of the NCPs and their expansion in order to cover the selected societal challenges and the organisation of information days and brokerage events in all Arab Gulf countries; (4) Roadmap future research activities and provide recommendations to the EC and the national regulatory and funding authorities; (5)Raise awareness and disseminate information.