Programmes of ex situ conservation and reintroduction into the natural environment can not give rise to any significant and enduring success without first sharing research efforts between several establishments in countries throughout the area concerned, and without thereafter sharing the risks and pooling the means allocated to this objective.

Such cooperation started in 1995 between different research institutes but needs to be developed with other public and private organisations that are responsible for improving acquired knowledge of the species in captivity, in France and abroad (including outside of Europe), in order to promote knowledge transfer.  Among these organisations,  the Hudson River Foundation, the US Fish and Wildlife Service and the Quebec Fauna and Parks Service have experience of the American Atlantic sturgeon ( Acipenser oxyrinchus), the closest cousin of the Acipenser sturio, which was present in the Baltic Sea and captured up to 1972 in Poland and up to 1984 in Lake Ladoga (Russia); the last specimen to be notified was in 1996 in Estonia.

Knowledge transfer should be encouraged between different regions of Europe where the Acipenser sturio was sympatric with other sturgeon species, for example the Acipenser naccarii in the Po catchment basin, Acipenser oxyrinchus in the Baltic catchment basin, Acipenser ruthenus in the Black Sea (Danube population).

This international cooperation should support the setting up of a European database in order to monitor capture data and draw up a European map of:
- historic spawning grounds,
- the state of conservation and quality of waters in the sturgeon’s essential habitats,
- protective measures set up for these habitats.

In order that international cooperation becomes operational, the following priorities have been defined:
- the continuation of the European work group originally established under the aegis of the Bern Convention, to encourage and monitor the implementation of the European plan and to facilitate the exchange of information on the species with other conventions (Convention on Migratory Species, OSPAR Convention, etc.)
- the continuation of  work undertaken by authorities and fisheries in the North East Atlantic;
- the continuation of the Franco-German efforts into ex situ conservation research.