New Service Unlocks Project Information on CORDIS

CORDIS (Community Research and Development Information Service) is the primary information source for EU-funded projects and a new Projects Service, launched on 16th January 2012, will enhance its role. Designed not only to be a comprehensive reference point for project participants, coordinators and stakeholders, the service will also make information and data available to wider audiences.

CORDIS has project records covering a myriad of science, technology and research-related fields and topics. Dating from before 1986 to the present, they relate not only to FP7, but also previous Framework Programmes. The new service will use the breadth of the CORDIS repository as a base to bring together a wide variety of information related to individual projects, including:

Project details such as description, funding, programme
Project results such as documents, reports, summaries
Links
Publications
Multimedia
Information and details on project participants.

The new Projects Service will unlock content, standardise the presentation of project information, and help users to find out more. Project records are added to the database once they are made available to CORDIS by the Commission service responsible. The new service provides tools and pointers that can help filter and facilitate search queries. Even when a project has finished, specific project information can help with result development, the planning of new initiatives, the indication of new research avenues and more.

For more information on the new Project Service, please click here.

EC Publication: A European Research Area for the Environment: Assessment of Progress & Recommendations for the Future

Taking stock of the progress of the European Research Area (ERA) in the field of the environment, this study recommends measures to further promote and develop a Europe-wide open space for environmental knowledge.

Compared to the year 2000 when the ERA was launched, progress has been made in achieving the ERA objectives in environmental research and innovation. Solid trans-border networking and coordination of research agendas are underway, however governance aspects still need to be tackled and a more structured public-private collaboration is needed to further exploit the potential of eco-innovation.

To download the publications, please click here.

Survey on Key Environmental Technology Priorities With China by EU Project 'SPRING'

The EU-funded environmental project SPRING (Scoping China's Environmental Research Excellence and Major Infrastructure: Foresight, Potentials and Roadmaps) seeks environmental experts and interested parties to fill in an online survey on key technologies in the environmental domain. The project aims to identify joint research priorities between the EU and China in five environmental domains: Climate Change, Water Environment, Biodiversity Conservation, Soil Environment, and Atmospheric Environment. The survey will only take twenty minutes and will help to identify the key technologies needed to address the most urgent challenges in these fields. The survey will be active until February 15th 2012, and is accessible by clicking here.

If you have any questions regarding this survey or the SPRING project, please contact Zoya Damianova, the Programme Director at ARC Fund or Adriana Dimova, the Project Officer.

Chinese-European R&D Survey by ChinaAccess4EU

The ChinaAccess4EU project has surveyed over 3,000 project stakeholders based in Europe and China to assess the level of collaboration. The results of the survey are outlined below.

Tools Supporting International Collaboration
In the survey, interviewees were given four options to identify the useful tools to support their international collaborations. Interviewees were allowed to select more than one tool. Amongst all four tools provided, 83% of the interviewees selected international cooperation research programmes as the most efficient tool. The use of research networks/platforms and websites ranked second and third, with 56% and 36% of the interviewees choosing those options respectively. Using an agency was considered the least relevant (19%).

The Main Reasons for Collaboration
The main reasons for Chinese researchers to collaborate with EU researchers were mostly to access advanced technologies, expand cooperation and access to the partners’ expertise. In addition, Chinese researchers also want to enhance the interaction with their EU colleagues. On the EU side, the general idea is to have access to specialized expertise in specific areas, and to enhance their understanding of Chinese culture and knowledge.

Barriers
In terms of the major barriers encountered by EU researchers for participation in Chinese programmes, language and cultural differences (39%), as well as lack of transparency of Chinese funding programmes (29%) were the two main identified barriers. Other barriers included the complexity of the application process and lack of financial support.

Recommendations
To improve EU researchers’ participation in Chinese programmes, the recommendations made by the survey respondents include the following:

Have access to more information in English about Chinese programmes including contact lists, networks and application process
Provide more communication on Chinese funding opportunities through forums and workshops/conferences
Increase Sino-European student/scholar exchange
Enhance the culture exchange between China and European countries
Provide Chinese language lessons to European researchers.

For further information about accessing Chinese research programmes, please go to the ChinaAccess4EU website.

New Electronic Form C - Feedback Wanted

The European Commission's plans towards the full electronic administration of EU research and innovation grants has taken another step forward. In 2012 the paper-signed financial statements (the form C) for grants in FP7 will be replaced by electronic-only forms submitted via a secured IT system in the Participant Portal.

In preparation for the change, Commission services discussed the main features of the planned approach and the potential impacts for beneficiaries at a meeting with a representative group of future users (Brussels, 15th December 2011). The video from this meeting is available to view by clicking here (starts from 22 minutes).

If you would like to provide any feedback on the meeting, a web forum specifically dedicated to the follow-up of the event is available by clicking here and will be open until the end of February 2012.

GMSAFOOD Conference, 6th-8th March, Vienna

The FP7 project GMSAFOOD is holding a free conference on GM allergenicity and safety in animals feed and GMOs & monitoring GMO effects after authorisation.

A strategy for the monitoring of GMOs following their introduction to the market is important to ensure safety and early detection of unexpected adverse effects. The GMSAFOOD conference on genetically modified organism safety and post market monitoring is aimed at the state-of-the-art approaches to evaluating the safety of authorized GMOs. Leaders in the field will present on safety in the population at large upon the introduction of new foods including GMOs.

Topics covered by the conference include:

GMO effects in animal studies

GMO effects in the food chain

Evaluating the potential allergenicity of GMOs intended for food use

Biotechnology - production of new GMOs

Limits of epidemiology for food post market surveillance for foods

Post market monitoring

International Life Sciences Institute (ILSI) Europe opinion

Political and regulatory aspects of post market monitoring

A biomarker approach for post market monitoring

Registration to the conference is free and is open until 28th February 2012. Please click here for more information.

Update on the 2011 Call Evaluation

The EC have indicated that the rejection letters for proposals which have failed the technical and financial phase will be sent out this week. If you are one of these and you would like to discuss re-submission, please get in touch.

For proposals that have passed the technical and financial selection, the award phase has started and panel meetings will take place next month to discuss which bids should make the shortlist. If you are successful you can expect an email with revision questions in March. It is, therefore, vital that the email address stated in your proposal is monitored on a daily basis as you will have a limited time to respond to any revisions. If you have any questions, please let us know.

Best LIFE Nature Projects 2010

The European Commission's LIFE Nature Unit have announced the Best LIFE Nature Projects 2010. The 18 projects selected represent the most successful of the recently completed LIFE Nature projects. This is in terms of best practices and/or demonstration actions on nature conservation and the implementation of the Habitats and Birds Directives.

To download the Best LIFE Nature Projects 2010 publication, please click here.

Herve Martin, Head of the LIFE Environment & Eco-Innovation Unit Talks About This Year's Call

Herve Martin has announced that the priority of the programme for the 2012 call will be water. “We adapt every year the Guidelines for applicants to highlight the political priorities. Next year [2012] will be water, the year after will be air and waste,” Mr Martin says.

He is eager to emphasise that his Unit will “try to be very strict and very precise” in regards to the implementation of the programme. The Guidelines will also be adapted, says Mr Martin, “to give applicants the possibility to prepare for "integrated projects" and not prevent them from applying to different stop shops”.

The LIFE Programme is currently facilitating the implementation of the Water Framework Directive, and Mr Martin concedes that “a lot has to be done by Member States to comply with the directive”. One aspect, in particular, is the requirement to produce river basin management plans. “We tried to design the call so that the good and valid solutions found or produced by the applicants might be used by us to implement the legislation and provide examples to Member States on this implementation,” Mr Martin says.

The LIFE programme has also a role to play in policy making. “We try to extract from the LIFE projects good solutions for Member States, as well as to extract data for policy.”

The next call for proposals also foresees stronger partnerships with the private sector. “That is new in the next call; we highlight the importance for applicants to apply green public procurement and to make private/public partnerships. For the time being, we have some experience on the biodiversity side and it worked,” he says.

To read the full article, including information from Herve Martin on the future of the LIFE Programme, please click here.

Angelo Salsi, Head of the LIFE Nature Unit Talks About the 2011 Call

As Head of the LIFE Nature Unit, Angelo Salsi has spent much of his last year overseeing progress of the Nature and Biodiversity components of LIFE+ and preparing the ground for the next period of LIFE Programme funding from 2014-2020. Mr Salsi notes that, “The present LIFE+ regulation still has two calls to be implemented before its application process formally closes at end of 2013. This means that potential applicants and interested parties should continue to look at the present regulation for guidance on Programme priorities”.

Reflecting on the overall state of the Programme in its current form, Mr Salsi draws attention to the fact that, “The application rounds continue to become more and more competitive. In 2011 for instance we saw that the numbers of applications peaked and 50% more proposals were submitted than before. We had a 100% increase in the numbers of some types of proposals, especially for the LIFE Information and LIFE Environment Components. Stronger competition was also seen for LIFE Nature and LIFE Biodiversity. The biggest increases we found were in proposals coming from the public sector. This was interesting because countries like Greece and Italy were able to submit a useful collection of proposals.”

“Factors affecting the increase in competitiveness are difficult to definitively assess but we must assume that one of the biggest drivers is the financial crisis. As budget cuts get worse we expect that competition will become even fiercer because there are very few areas in the field of environment where you find cash available from instruments like LIFE to make additional investments.”

Mr Salsi points to the quality of LIFE project proposals becoming a vital success ingredient for applicants. “Quality factors remain relatively constant from one year to another,” he says, and continues, “The ambition of the proposal to achieve added value at an EU level, not just nationally or regionally, to address a priority environmental issue is crucial.”

“Ambitious projects can involve a lot of quite complicated inter-related issues and actions which can be a challenge to explain concisely in the application form. The quality of the basic project description is therefore more and more important as a determinant for accessing the LIFE co-finance. This is true for all of the Programme’s Components.”

For LIFE Nature and LIFE biodiversity, Mr Salsi believes that demand will continue to increase as the implementation of the Habitats Directives moves from planning to active management. “Money is needed to manage the land and waters that support species and habitats in our Natura network. LIFE remains the main dedicated source of co-finance for such actions so we suspect that Member States’ interest in LIFE Nature will increase. During the next funding period after 2013, LIFE’s Natura investments will be joined by EU funds from rural development and cohesion policy, but until then LIFE is still the core financial instrument for Natura.”

Referring to LIFE’s Biodiversity Component, the Head of Unit also expects that it will play a bigger role in the future, now that understanding about its role is becoming more widespread. “The context for LIFE+ Biodiversity has been better clarified in 2011 following the adoption of the new EU 2020 Biodiversity Strategy. Certain elements are well established like the strategy’s mandate covering nature conservation and species protection. These are perceived in EU terms as being under the wing of Natura 2000, and so LIFE Nature, as key delivery vehicles. Other important strategy areas like how to deal with alien species are also well known and we have cases where LIFE Biodiversity is working here.”

To read the full article on Angelo Salsi, please click here.

COST: European Cooperation in Science and Technology

The next deadline for the submission of preliminary proposals to the COST Open Call is the 30th March 2012.

Developing stronger links among European researchers is crucial to building the European Research Area (ERA). Cost stimulates new, innovative, interdisciplinary and broad research networks in Europe and although it does not fund research itself, it does support networking activities. Proposals for COST actions should contribute to the scientific, technological, economic, cultural or societal development of Europe.

For more information on COST please click here.