The EU Networking Fund (EUNF) is open to any BU academics who want to network across Europe with a view to finding collaborators. We have a pot of money to support this scheme, and the fund will end when the pot is empty.
You can apply for support for a range of activities relating directly to networking, such as:
• Travel with the intent of networking
• Conference attendance with the intent of networking
• Attendance at external networking events leading to collaborative research proposals
• Meetings with external organisations to establish collaborations.

You can read more on this scheme in the EUNF Policy Document and make a submission using theEUNF Application Form; there is no deadline.

My EUNF application is successful! The funding enables me to visit Gotland University, Sweden, in May/June 2013. I will meet and discuss with Professor Masayuki Nakajima in the Department of Game Design, for research collaboration on Artificial Intelligence (AI), Virtual Worlds and Augmented Reality (AR). We aim to combine our expertise to bid ICT related FP7 calls.

Nakajima is world well-known scientist in the field of AI, AR, computer graphics, animation and game. He has published 20 books and more than 250 scientific papers in high impact journals and premium conferences. In 2011, he has moved his laboratory from Tokyo Institute of Technology, Japan to Gotland University, the first Swedish university with a full-scale academic programme based on the Liberal Education tradition.

During my visit, we will be discussing and working on potential projects for submission to FP7. And another potential outcome of my visit is to establish an education collaboration between DEC, BU and the Department of Game Design (DGD) in Gotland University. Opportunities like Erasmus, postgraduate recruitment, etc. might be explored as well during the visit.

Sustainable Design Research Centre (Zulfiqar Khan and Mark Hadfield) reported the success of BU EUNF application for funding on March 19^th 2012 through the BU Blog. The award played a significant role to achieve the objectives of the original plan as

• To initiate links for the proposed programme
• Gauge interests in the identified partners in terms of the proposed research programme
• Identify more industrial links for collaborations
• Identify relevant resources and expertise
• Identify the most relevant EU funding stream
• Define goals for the proposed research
• Apply for the EU consortium fund as a next milestone
• Develop an EU/relevant funding body bid

Monday 2^nd July 2012 was scheduled for the BU-Tank Museum EU Conference here at BU. A successful conference was held with key representatives from the following organisations

• BU
• The Tank Museum, Bovington, UK
• Oxford University, UK
• Military Museum, Munster Panzer Museum, Germany
• Finnish Tank Museum, Finland
• Swedish Tank Museum, Sweden
• Belgian Military Museum
• Military Museum, Dresden, Germany

It was planned to apply for EU networking/consortium funds to take off the proposal development process. Various actions were identified and linked with the expertise/resources. Following from the discussions it was agreed to define a roadmap for the newly formed consortium in terms of sustainable methodology of conserving historic military vehicles in the museum environments across EU.

The following relevant EU funding strands were identified as potential for targeting.

• ARTEMIS Call 2012 was investigated to see if it was useful in terms of the research.
• Strategies and Projects for Research & Innovation, Scientific & Management Partnerships in research and innovation, Open calls for proposals of the Seventh Framework Programme for Research and Development was investigated to identify relevant strand and specific call.
• COST (European Cooperation in Science and Technology) is one of the longest-running European frameworks supporting cooperation among scientists and researchers across Europe calls from this initiative were investigated.

COST (European Cooperation in Science and Technology) open call has been identified to be targeted for further research collaborative activities.

A proposal is currently being developed to submit an application to this call. A meeting with the Tank Museum Director Richard Smith, Professor Mark Hadfield and Dr Zulfiqar Khan has been scheduled on the 31^st of July 2012 to start developing proposal for the above mentioned open call due by the end of September 2012.

This was a significant opportunity in terms of initiating new links across EU museums and key stakeholders. This also provided an influential platform for disseminating and promoting the existing research undertaken in collaboration with The Tank Museum. The newly formed collaborative links with the DSTL (MOD) has already yielded into a DEC-DSTL match funded PhD studentship which is a significant milestone Further links have already been followed to strengthen the newly developed group, which will be important in future funding applications and securing external income.

I have recently returned from the World  Media Economics & Management Conference in Greece – many thanks to the EUNF.

This event is a biennial meeting of the global community of media business scholars who reflect on contemporary issues in the economics and management of media industries and firms. It aims to provide to a platform for academics who research in this area to meet and network. I was particularly interested in developing relationships and collaborative project ideas with a number of academics from EU universities including Jönköping International Business School, Sweden; Tampere University, Finland; the Berlin Media Business School, and the University of Vienna, Austria.

I met with academics from all of these institutions (and others) and discussed how we could collaborate on the opportunities provided by the Creative Europe fund (2014-20) and any other related media funds that they were aware of.  As a result of the EUNF I have established contacts and am now in the process of working up 2 outline projects for the Creative Europe fund. I have also been invited by the University of Vienna to be a Key Note speaker at their European Summer School for media related doctoral research students, and am in the process of assisting an Eramus exchange between BU and the University of Zaragoza.

Many thanks BU EUNF, it’s a great initiative!

In April 2012, I visited University Lyon 1, France  and other research institutes and universities nearby with partial support of BU’s internal funding scheme – the EU Networking Fund (EUNF). The main objective of the visit is to seek research collaboration in ICT, particularly on FP7 grants bidding.

During the visit, I have given seminars or talks to staff and research students in University Lyon 1 and Laboratory of Information, Imaging and System (LIRIS) about my research on terrain texturing, computer animation, and above mentioned objective of my visit. The seminars or talks have opened the door for subsequent networking and discussion on collaboration.

To seek and identify candidates for incoming Marie Curie Fellowship (FP7-People), I have talked a number of candidates during my visit, including those post-doctorates from LIRIS, French engineering university, INSA Lyon, and those PhD students who are going to finish their study very soon. Apart from above institutes, I also paid a visit to Ecole Central University, meeting Professor Liming Chen. We have explored the possibilities on FP7 bidding and are identifying candidates among his PhD students and Post-Doctorates on applying Marie-Currie Fellowship (MCF). Some candidates are now considering working with me to submit an application. They are either from EU or other countries such as Korea and China, both eligible for the Fellowship application.

Apart from MCF, I have also targeted a recent call from EC, “EAC / S03 / 2012 – Pilot Project for the Development of Knowledge Partnerships”. I have discussed with Associate Professor Sylvain Brandel from LIRIS and a senior researcher Milen Chechev from a company Ontotext in Bulgaria . There is a potential for us form a team to submit a bid for this call. I met Milen when I attended the conference WWW ’12 which was being held in Lyon in April. This is another outcome of my visit, i.e. networking with people during the conference for potential collaboration.

In addition to the bidding collaboration, my visit has also created a few research collaboration opportunities with other researchers in the area of terrain texturing and non-photorealistic rendering (NPR). In LIRIS, I discussed with Associate Professor Jean-Claude Iehl to apply lighting, shading and multi-scale into terrain texturing (such as stone, grass, etc.). With Professor Victor Ostromoukhov, we discussed collaboration on NPR and other opportunities. Also, I visited Grenoble University , meeting and discussing with Dr Federic on collaboration of his snow research and our terrain texturing project.

Overall, the visit has fulfilled the objective set initially and ‘planted’ a number of opportunities for further collaboration in near future. And I’d like to take this opportunity to thank RDU for supporting me this activity.

I am delighted to know that my application to EUNF is successful. The award will partially support my academic visit to University Claude Bernard Lyon 1, Lyon, France.

As the France’s 4th university, Lyon 1 attains excellence in the fields of higher education and research. The University is committed to more than 80 European Union projects and participates actively in FP7. Apart from academic activities in Computer Science Department, during the visit, I will focus my networking activities in the Laboratory of Informatics and Image System (LIRIS), a well-known research center with members from Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1, Université Lumière Lyon 2, École Centrale de Lyon, etc. Research in LIRIS cover image processing, 3D modelling, animation, mobile application, data mining, information retrieval, etc., which matches my research area.

The main objective of the networking is to target two potential FP7 calls. One is Marie Curie Career Integration Grants. Under LIRIS are there a number of research teams, including Simulation, Analysis and Animation for Augmented Reality (SAAAR), Multiresolution, Discrete and Combinatorial Models, Feature Extraction and Identification, Realistic Rendering for Mobile Augmented Reality, etc. Each team has around 10 PhD students. I will identify and meet a few most promising students for potential Marie Curie fellowship.

The other call interesting to me is FP7-ICT-2011-9, Collaborative Projects – small or medium scale focused research projects (STREPs). Particular project directions I’d like to investigate are mobile augmented reality and its application in game and animation. The research teams above mentioned have a number of professors and associate professors, whom I intend to meet and discuss with them about potential collaborative projects.

Another activity I’d like to get involved is the World Conference of Web 2012 (http://www2012.org) which is going to be held in Lyon. It’s the most selective International Conference of the Web. I would like to take the opportunity to attend the part of the conference during the period of my visit, particularly on the presentation of European projects, expecting more networking with European partners.

It gives me great pleasure to inform you that our EUNF pot has now been emptied! Well done to our 6 successful applicants who have been awarded a total of over £11, 000 to help support thei networking activities across Europe aimed at making a grant submission. You can read their accounts over the next couple of weeks on the blog (and a few are on here already) of how they will use funding and what happened after they visited their potential collaborators.

Thanks to all of you who have shown your interest and engagement in developing relationships with your EU partners and well done to our successful applicants.