Category / EU

Welcome to the EU section of the blog! Emily Cieciura (BU’s Research Facilitator – EU and International), Jo Garrad (Funding Development Manager) and Dianne Goodman (Funding Development Co-ordinator) together try to take the pain out of finding and applying for EU funding by horizon scanning many sources and placing the most important information on this page.

We blog as often as possible on everything from calls for proposals and partner searches, to networking event opportunities, all the latest on Horizon 2020 and international funding. We also use the blog to disseminate information on EUADS (BU’s EU academic training initiative), how to write brilliant proposals, how to find partners and other top tips!

CONFIDENTIAL! FP7 Food, Agriculture, Fisheries & Biotechnology likely future calls for proposals are here!

EU

Exciting news if you’re interested in applying to the FP7 Food, Agriculture, Fisheries & Biotechnology theme next year – I’ve managed to obtain confidential documents which hint at calls to be released next July.

The documents are long and very dull and I’ve saved you the pain of reading these by summarising them for you with bookmarks to allow you to jump straight to the area which interests you.As these document are highly confidential I have placed the summary on our I drive; it is strictly forbidden to circulate this outside of BU! I:\R&KEO\Public\Draft Work Programmes for 2012. The final Work Programmes which feature the calls for proposals aren’t officially released until July 2012 so reading this gives you a fantastic head start to preparing a submission.

Whenever I can obtain other documents indicating future calls for FP7 I will summarise these for you and place on the blog (I’ve already done this for the Health theme) so keep checking the EU blog to make sure you don’t miss out!

TOP SECRET! I have a draft of the next calls to be released in Health under FP7…

EU

top secretI’ve managed to get my grubby mitts on a draft version of the FP7 Health Work Programme which features the calls for proposals to be released in 2012. This is just a draft and therefore subject to change but it gives you a great idea as to what the European Commission are looking to fund.
The Work Programme is a tedious read so I’ve summarised the info on funding in there for you; the aim of the call, the eligibility criteria, etc. I have bookmarked the document so you can jump straight to the call that interests you.

As this document is highly confidential I have placed it on our I drive; it is strictly forbidden to circulate this outside of BU! I:\R&KEO\Public\Draft Work Programmes for 2012
The final official version of the Work Programmes aren’t released until July 2012 so this gives you a fantastic head start to preparing a submission.

I will summarise the other themes as soon as I get the drafts through so keep your eyes peeled on this blog for them!

MEDIA 2007 Call for Proposals: Promotion and Access to Markets

EU

The EC has launched a call for proposals for the promotion and access to markets under the Media 2007 Programme.

The objectives include:

  • facilitating and encouraging the promotion and movement of European audiovisual and cinema works at trade shows, fairs and audiovisual festivals in Europe and around the globe, insofar as such events may play an important role in the promotion of European works and the networking of professionals, and
  • encouraging the networking of European operators, by supporting joint activities on the European and international markets by national public or private promotion bodies.

The deadline for sending in applications is: 22 December 2011 for activities starting between 1 June 2012 and up to 31 December 2012. The guidelines of the call for proposals, as well as the application forms, are available from the European Commission’s website.

EU Active and Healthy Ageing Innovation Partnership announce focus of research areas

EU

The Active & Healthy Ageing EU Innovation Partnership was established earlier this year with a pilot aim to increase the average healthy lifespan in Europe by two years by 2020. Its steering group (33 members from Europe including member states and regional authorities, organisations representing groups of patients, doctors, academics, and businesses) announced this week that it will focus on 5 research and policy areas:

  1. improving medicines compliance
  2. preventing falls
  3. fighting frailty and malnutrition
  4. developing new care models
  5. boosting the uptake of ICT solutions for independent living

The strategy includes in particular actions at the regional level, for example to spread remote monitoring care models for older patients suffering from chronic diseases. Other actions will be added later to these first five priorities, including improving health literacy and the diagnosis of cognitive decline.

EC Media- related i2i Audiovisual funding available

EU

The EC has launched a call for proposals for the development, distribution, promotion and training of i2i audiovisual under the Media 2007 Programme.

The objective of this support is to facilitate independent European production companies’ access to funding from credit and financial institutions, by co-financing part of the costs of:

  • insurance for audiovisual productions: Module 1 — Support the ‘Insurance’ item in a production budget,
  • completion guarantee for the production of an audiovisual work: Module 2 — Support for the item ‘Completion Guarantee’ in a production budget, and
  • credit financing for the production of a work: Module 3 — Support for the item ‘Financial Costs’ in a production budget.

Applications for this call for proposals must be submitted at the latest by:

  • 6 January 2012, for projects with an earliest start date 1 July 2011,
  • 6 June 2012, for projects with an earliest start date 1 December 2011

The guidelines and application forms of this call for proposals may be found on the European Commission’s website.

 

 

Partner sought for Green Materials FP7 Project

EU

The School of Applied Sciences at Cranfield University in the UK is looking for partners to develop innovative advanced lightweight materials for the next generation of environmentally-friendly electric vehicles. This would include materials using thermoplastics, polymer nanocomposites and fibre-reinforced polymers, composites, and deploy them into the body parts, chassis and heavier interior systems. The project would also look at reducing the structural weight of materials, exploiting new material characteristics, developing related production processes, and carrying out life-cycle and cost-model analyses.You can read more details on the project here.

The CORDIS Partners Service helps you to find research collaborators in order to benefit from EU or other funding. You can also search by profile type, programme and/or country to find project partners.

Want more funding for Social Sciences and Humanities Research? Then you should sign this petition to the EC!

EU

A consortium called ‘Socio-economic Sciences and Humanities for the Future of Europe’ is seeking signatures to an open letter addressed to the EC which advocates the inclusion of a socio-economic sciences and humanities(SSH) research programme in Horizon 2020 (FP7’s replacement).   

The group comprises a number of organisations including Net4Society, the network of National Contact Points for SSH, ALLEA, the European Federation of National Academies of Sciences and Humanities, and ECHIC, the European Consortium of Humanities Institutes and Centres. 

The letter outlines the crucial role to be played by social sciences and humanities research in addressing societal challenges and informing EU policy, and makes a number of specific requests:
1. that a ‘substantial and independent’ SSH programme (called ‘Understanding Europe’), with a ring-fenced budget of €5 billion, be included in Horizon 2020;
2. that there are opportunities for SSH research to contribute to other challenges relating to climate change, energy, food, health, security and transport;
3. that a diversity of approaches are encouraged; and
4.that the research supported should include ‘perspectives from different cultures, backgrounds and schools of thought to stimulate critical reflections and to better anticipate future societal challenges’.

In a week since its issue, the open letter has collected a staggering 3, 700 signatures from a wide range of countries. It takes only a few seconds to sign and I did mine this morning. If you’re involved in social sciences or humanities research, make your signature count so future EC funds for your area are fair and sign today!

This free dataset will really help your EU funding proposal!

EU

Downloading the FREE European Social Survey’s (ESS) latest dataset will be invaluable for the majority of you thinking of applying for EU funding. The ESS is a high standard survey in which 28 countries took part (with 2400 responses from the UK).  

The ESS covers topics such as political engagement; trust in institutions; moral and social values; social capital; social exclusion; national, ethnic and religious identity; well-being, health and security and you can carry out a simple analysis online of archived data. In the latest round information the questionnaire included questions on:

1) Work, family and well-being. Areas covered include: the impact of the recession on households and work; job security; housework; wellbeing; unemployment; work-life balance.

2) Trust in criminal justice. Areas covered include: confidence in the police and the courts; cooperation with the police and the courts; contact with the police; attitudes towards punishment.

Brand Spanking New Marie Curie Alumni Portal

EU

The Marie Curie Alumni Portal is offering free membership services to anyone who has won Marie Curie funding; and with over 50, 000 researchers who have been funded through this scheme, it is bound to be a hive of activity! The portal currently offers a number of membership services such as: 

  • an automated alert about new Marie Curie calls for proposals or meeting;
  • a discussion board to promote the exchange of knowledge between alumni on areas of expertise, career opportunities or events and conferences;
  • an events calendar with important meetings and events of interest to alumni; and
  • personalised alerts to news and content from the portal.

Following on from the launch of the Alumni portal, in 2012 a Marie Curie Alumni Association will be created which will merge with the existing Marie Curie Fellows Association.

If you have won Marie Curie funding, then please do register on this prital . And if you are thinking of applying in the future for a grant, then this shows what a great support network exists for Marie Curie Fellows, leading to future collaborations.

 

EU funding for Information & Communication Research

EU

ERA-Net CHIST-ERA (European Coordinated Research on Long-term Challenges in Information and Communication Sciences and Technologies) invites proposals for international research project grants. These support highly innovative and multidisciplinary collaborative projects in information and communication sciences and technologies with the potential for significant scientific and technical impacts. Proposals for this call should address the following topics: from data to new knowledge (D2K); green ICT, towards zero power ICT (G-ICT).  Institutions from France, the UK, Spain, Germany, Ireland, Austria, Poland, Switzerland, Turkey, Romania and Luxembourg may apply. Projects should typically last for two to three years, and are expected to request a maximum of €2 million each.

INFER Mini–Workshop on Predictive Analytics

EU

Nowadays web users generate a lot of data in a form of web logs. This data can tell us a lot about visitor behavior, their demands and preferences.  Predictive web analytics is aimed at understanding and predicting behavioral patterns of users in various web-based applications or services: e-commerce, mass-media, and entertainment industries. This mini workshop focuses on challenges and techniques in predictive web analytics.

If you are interested to find out what can be predicted from visitor behavior on the web and how it can be done, welcome to attend!

Date: Monday, 31/10/2011

Time: 4pm – 6pm

Place: PG143, Poole House, Talbot Campus

 4pm – 5pm

Mykola Pechenizkiy will talk about Context Aware Predictive Analytics: Motivation, Potential, Challenges

 5pm – 6pm

Omar Kudmany will talk about Web log pre-processing using Complex Event Processing technologies

European Energy Research Alliance seeks additional partners

EU

In spring 2012, fifteen other organisations will be selected as partners for a two-year term. The Alliance is now made up of ten energy research organisations, which got together in October 2008 to develop joint research programmes. EERA partners must pay an annual fee worth €10,000. Only one organisation can join per EU member state. The call for expressions of interest closes on 1 February 2012.

A glimpse of Horizon 2020….

EU

It has been announced that Horizon 2020 will include three components for basic research, industrial technology, and ‘grand challenges’

  • ‘Excellence in the science base’ will fund basic research.
  • ‘Creating industrial leadership and competitive frameworks’ will fund business research and innovation, in particular for small enterprises.
  •  ‘Tackling societal challenges’ will fund research that responds to grand challenges such as food security and climate change.

Horizon 2020 will increase funding for innovation through funding schemes for ‘prototyping, dissemination, demonstration, pilots, testing, user involvement, market replication, and public procurement’ and will use a single, standardised set of rules across all funding instruments to simplify procedures. In addition, it will expand the Open Access Pilot that promotes the free dissemination of EU-funded scientific publications, which now covers about 20 per cent of the Framework 7 budget.

European Science Foundation grants to help you network!

EU

The European Science Foundation has invited proposals for short visit, exchange and scientific meetings grants under its research networking programmes. Topics include evolution of social cognition across a wide range of human and non-human animal species and child cohort studies, precision polymer materials, interactions of low-dimensional topology and geometry with mathematical physics and others.

The deadlines for these grants are: 15 February, 15 June and 15 October.

How to find partners for EU Projects

EU

EC projects usually require partners, with the number and geographical location varying for each call. A useful tip to remember when considering your partner options is that a consortium should include a good balance of sectors industry, academia, user groups etc) and that all partners should be well-matched to the activities in the proposal.

You can find partners through your existing contacts, by reviewing previously awarded FP6 and FP7 projects, by searching/ advertising on the UKRO website ,by seeking the assistance of the relevant UK National Contact Point and by attending EU conferences and project evaluations, by scanning the CORDIS website.

The best and most effective way to become involved in FP7 consortia however, is to join European Technology Platforms (ETPs). These are groups of industry-led stakeholder forums who explore Europe’s key challenges. ETPs define the EU Strategic research agenda and then bid for European Commission funds (through FP7 etc) to address these. The biggest players in the field across Europe belong to these groups and obviously as they set the research agenda, they are increduibly successful at winning FP7 funds for research. Joining these groups will not only open you to a plethora of partners but also will allow you to contribute in shaping the research agenda of Europe (which you can then address through funding). Some of the major ETPs are listed below with hyperlinks to their webpages:

Advanced Engineering Materials and Technologies
Advisory Council for Aeronautics Research in Europe
Embedded Computing Systems
European Biofuels Technology Platform
European Construction Technology Platform
European Nanoelectronics Initiative Advisory Council
European Rail Research Advisory Council
European Road Transport Research Advisory Council
European Space Technology Platform
European Steel Technology Platform
European Technology Platform for the Electricity Networks of the Future
European Technology Platform for Wind Energy
European Technology Platform on Smart Systems Integration  
European Technology Platform on Sustainable Mineral Resources
Farm Animal Breeding and Reproduction Technology Platform
Food for Life
Forest based sector Technology Platform
Future Manufacturing Technologies
Future Textiles and Clothing
Global Animal Health
Industrial Safety ETP
Integral Satcom Initiative
Mobile and Wireless Communications
Nanotechnologies for Medical Applications
Networked and Electronic Media
Networked European Software and Services Initiative
Photonics21
Photovoltaics
Plants for the Future
Robotics
Sustainable Nuclear Technology Platform
Sustainable Chemistry
Water Supply and Sanitation Technology Platform
Waterborne ETP
Zero Emission Fossil Fuel Power Plants

Bamboozled by Intellectual Property Right in FP7 proposals…?

EU

Then the new factsheets published by the European Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) Helpdesk is for you!

The factsheets aim to help you with your IP issues at different stages of FP7 projects before you start writing your proposal. How to manage IP in FP7 during the proposal stage looks at some of the issues you need to consider when putting your proposal together, as well as questions you should address in the text of the proposal itself. How to manage IP in FP7 during the negotiation stage highlights issues that consortia should bear in mind during negotiation of grant agreements with the EC once a proposal has been lucky enough to have been selected for funding. ‘How to manage IP in FP7 during and after the project’ isn’t quite ready yet, but will be published on the IPR website soon!

BU workshop on Meta Transfer of Knowledge as part of EU project

EU

You are invited to contribute and participate in a Workshop on Meta Transfer of Knowledge – Challenges in Transfer of Knowledge in Industry.

The workshop is taking place at the International Conference on Innovation through Knowledge Transfer at BU on 19th and 20th of April 2012.

The workshop is a part of Knowledge Transfer activities that take place within the EU funded INFER project coordinated by Prof. Bogdan Gabrys, DEC. INFER offers participants the opportunity to move between sectors and country in order to provide, absorb and implement new knowledge in a professional industrial-academic environment.

The workshop will allow conference delegates to benefit from experiences in knowledge transfer, knowledge exchange and knowledge sharing, during the progress of the INFER and other similar projects.

The goal of the workshop is to share the knowledge about the most effective transfer of knowledge activities that can and have been organised especially in large international projects such as those carried out within EC “People” Industry-Academia Partnerships and Pathways (IAPP) programme.

Such projects are of particular interest to this workshop as their aim is to stimulate intersectoral mobility and increase knowledge sharing through joint research partnerships in longer term co-operation programmes between organisations from academia and industry where effective knowledge transfer is critical to the success of the projects.

As the transfer of knowledge mechanisms can be observed in all areas where the cooperation between academia and industry exists, it is hoped that sustainable collaborations between people who are interested in continuous development of these mechanisms and improvement of their efficiency will be fostered. This will give the opportunity to push further the discussion upon the potential of Transfer of Knowledge phenomena across different communities.

More about this event can be found on the project website and if you have any further questions about the Workshop please contact Katarzyna Musial.