Two Science and Technology Agreements Signed in Brussels

On the 30th November, the European Community signed technology cooperation agreements with Japan and Jordan that will help identify common research priorities and areas of common interest, such as energy, sustainable development and environment. Mechanisms will also be put in place to enable wider science and technology cooperation. The agreement with Japan provides for reciprocal participation in research programmes, exchange of researchers, and coordinated calls for proposals. The Jordanian agreement places emphasis on opening a new chapter of scientific cooperation between the EC and this important partner in the European Union's neighbourhood policy.  

To read the full article please click here.

Public Consultation on the Future EU 2020 Strategy

The European Commission is calling on all stakeholders, particularly those involved in research, to share their views on suggested, broad policy considerations for the future EU 2020 strategy. To facilitate this, a public consultation process has been opened.

This strategy should enable the EU to make a full recovery from the current economic crisis, while speeding up the move towards a smart and green economy. EU 2020 will build on the progress made through the Lisbon Strategy, which focused on growth and jobs, while also addressing its shortcomings.

The Commission intends to present a formal proposal for the EU 2020 strategy early next year, with a view to the EU's heads of state and government adopting the strategy at a spring 2010 meeting. The Commission believes that this formal proposal would greatly benefit from the involvement of research, and especially researchers in the socio-economic sciences and humanities.

For more information please click here.

The European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT) launches its first three Knowledge and Innovation Communities (KICs)

The European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT) has unveiled three major new innovation clusters focusing on climate, energy and information technology. Each of the initiatives will bring together academia and industry at several locations across Europe.

The Knowledge and Innovation Communities (KICs ) will receive start-up funding of €3 million and will report to the EU's commissioner for education, culture, multilingualism and youth. The EIT headquarters in Budapest is expected to be fully up and running by April 2010.

• Climate change mitigation and adaptation: Climate-KIC
• Sustainable energy: KIC InnoEnergy
• Future information and communication society: EIT ICT Labs

To read more please click here.

Winning FP7 Bids, 19th January 2010, Cambridge

This workshop will explain how to prepare a winning proposal for collaborative research in FP7. Starting with the evaluation process and criteria, the chief financial conditions including viability checks and guarantees, and rules on intellectual property rights.

The main part of the day will focus on the proposal itself, showing how a well designed project and consortium will meet the evaluation criteria. Examples from real proposals will illustrate good and bad practise in presenting bids.

The workshop is aimed at researchers, research managers and advisors preparing a proposal or trying to understand what is involved.  Places will be limited to 24 participants to allow high levels of interaction and plenty of time for questions.

For further information please click here.

Benefiting From EU Research Projects - Successful Participation and Commercialisation of Results, 29th January 2010, Brussels

Trying to overcome the gap of participating in EU projects and to be able to commercialise the results have been issues that three EU projects have been working on (ECOINNO2SME, USEandDIFFUSE, PRESTO).

The event in January will demonstrate best practice examples on how to exploit research results. In addition to this, the next Eco-Innovation Call for proposals expected in April 2010, will be presented by the EACI. Other relevant European stakeholders in the area of Eco-Innovation will also be present.

Please take this chance to attend and network with other EU-experienced participants and to establish links with European stakeholders.

For more information and to register please click here. 

BetaEurope Partner Profiles

The BetaEurope partner search page has NEW European and UK profiles to download in the areas of:

• ENV.2010.1.1.6-3: Quantifying the costs of mitigating climate change by means of activities involving joint climate and economic modelling.
• KBBE.2010.1.2-08: Improving European mollusc aquaculture: disease detection and
  management.

• KBBE.2010.1.4-03: Assessment of transition pathways to sustainable agriculture and
  social and technological innovation needs.

• KBBE.2010.2.4-02: Identification of the effect of processing on food contaminant.

• KBBE.2010.3.5-04: Microbial diversity and metagenomic mining for biotechnological
  innovation.

To access these and other partner search profiles, please click on the following link:

www.betaeurope.co.uk/partnersearch.htm.

LIFE Project Features at WEEE Forum Conference, 23rd - 24th September 2010, Zurich, Switzerland 

The WEEE (Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment) Forum will organise a conference in Zurich on the 23rd-24th September 2010.

One of the key topics of the conference will be WEEELABEX, the WEEE Forum's project co-financed by LIFE. WEEELABEX aims to lay down a set of standards concerning transport, treatment and processing of WEEE, and guidelines to monitor the implementation of those standards by operators in the WEEE chain.

For more information about the WEEE Forum and WEEELABEX please visit the website.

LIFE+ 2007-2008 Nature Project Cataogue Published

The Commission has recently published a catalogue of “Best LIFE Nature projects 2007-08”, highlighting 26 LIFE Nature projects selected as being exemplary in their area of work.

To view the catalogue please click here.