International cooperation in science and innovation is not only able to help solve global issues, such as the battle against climate change, hunger and incurable diseases, but also to overcome political disagreement between countries. The joint international OECD-HSE workshop 'Transnational research and innovation partnerships. Designing international co-operation projects to deliver on economic competitiveness and the grand challenges' addressed the question of how to achieve maximum effectiveness in such cooperation, best practices in organizing research cooperation, and the support tools that the state should provide.