Reduced rate for EU funding training

Posted on June 25, 2013 by ejd2

The External Projects Team have been offered two places for a Moderngov training session on accessing European funding. The session will be held in London on 9th July. Full details of the programme are available by clicking this link http://www.moderngov.com/courses/sector-specific/accessing-european-funding-09-07-2013/. The reduced rate is £395 + VAT per delegate – please contact externalprojects@staffs.ac.uk by 4pm Friday 28th June for details on how to secure this reduced rate. The External Projects Team will be running internal events on EU funding in the Autumn so if this course is of interest to you but you are unable to attend, please keep an eye out for further updates.

Council Conclusions on International Co-operation in Horizon 2020

Posted on June 10, 2013 by Esther KNIGHT

As part of the discussions during last week’s meeting of EU countries’ science ministers in Brussels, the Competitiveness Council has issued a set of conclusions on the subject of international co-operation within Horizon 2020.

The Competitiveness Council calls on the European Commission, member states and key stakeholders:

to develop common principles on issues such as responsible research and innovation, research integrity; peer review; promotion of gender equality and the gender dimension in research and innovation; researcher careers; fair and equitable treatment of IP; and open access to publicly funded research publications and to research infrastructures;

Acknowledging the crucial importance of international research collaboration, the conclusions emphasise that the European Commission should ‘systematically consider where international co-operation can add strategic value in implementing Horizon 2020 and could play a particularly valuable role in the Horizon 2020 work programmes’. The Council also invites the Commission, working closely with EU Member States, to identify priorities for international co-operation on the basis of Horizon 2020 and of the results of FP7 projects.

The conclusions also underline the importance of preparing ‘multi-annual roadmaps for co-operation with the EU’s strategic partners, which will identify priorities and instruments for activities within Horizon 2020 for international co-operation on research and innovation’. The Council also states that Member States must be involved from an early stage in this process, and calls on the Commission to present the first roadmaps by the end of 2013.

http://www.consilium.europa.eu/uedocs/cms_data/docs/pressdata/en/intm/137346.pdf

University attends the 5th University Business Forum, Brussels

Posted on June 10, 2013 by ejd2

199

On 4^th and 5^th June the European Commission hosted the 5^th University Business Forum. Over 300 registered delegates from across the EU listened to a number of high profile speakers including Jan Truszczyński, Director General of DG EAC and Androulla Vassiliou, European Commissioner for Education, Culture, Multilingualism and Youth. From the UK perspective Sir Tim Wilson, author of A Review of Business–University Collaboration, February 2012 (click here to view) also gave a key note which was well received by the audience.

The role of University Business collaborations for growth was central to discussions. The Commissioner highlighted the importance of University Business collaborations to address the challenges of high the levels of youth unemployment and an increasing skills gap facing Europe today. Successful initiatives evolving from previous forums were also presented, including details of the Knowledge Alliance funding calls and the “Guiding Framework for Entrepreneurial Universities”; an online self assessment tool developed in cooperation with the OCED.

Staffordshire University’s Catherine Fehily also presented at one of the workshops ‘Design – a vital part of Innovation’, providing an overview of the excellent staff-student enterprise activity that FACT has achieved through Flux, High House and SPoTS atelier. The Commission also paid for two of our FACT students to attend along with a handful of students to provide real time illustrations of the workshops to support the feedback process.

Should you wish to find out more information the event website has a full list of the speakers and recordings of the main sessions http://ubforum2013.teamwork.fr/.

EU agrees top-up for 2013 programmes

Posted on May 23, 2013 by BENNETT Margaret

Image EU agrees top-up for 2013 programmes

By Laura Greenhalgh

15 May 13

European finance ministers have pledged to provide an additional €7.3 billion of funding this year, to pay bills for EU programmes including Framework 7.

At a meeting on 14 May, member states gave their political agreement to the funds, stating they would be used for “measures to support economic growth, create jobs and tackle unemployment”.

The €7.3bn-allocation is the first batch of money designed to top up this year’s budget, and meet payments already committed under EU programmes. The Commission has previously estimated that €11.2bn will be needed in total, including €678 million for Framework 7 and €126m for education and the Erasmus programme.

Finance ministers said they would consider a second payment to make up the funds in mid-October. The first tranche of additional money was agreed under qualified majority by the member states, although five countries—the UK, Denmark, Finland, Sweden and the Netherlands—opposed the move.

The Council of Minister’s positive signal on the 2013 budget means discussions on the 2014-20 budget framework can continue as planned. MEPs had previously stated they would be unwilling to agree a package for the next seven years, until member states agreed to honour commitments for this year.

However, at yesterday’s meeting, finance ministers said the formal vote on the extra €7.3bn will be postponed until the Council of Ministers and the European Parliament reach an agreement on the overall seven-year budget.

At a press conference following the meeting, the Irish minister for finance Michael Noonan said: “As you know, these discussions [on the 2013 budget] have been linked by the European Parliament to the discussions on the multiannual financial framework. Whilst we regret this link, we acknowledge this is a political reality.”

“Both the European Parliament and the Council have agreed to the principle that ‘nothing is agreed until everything is agreed’”, stated the Council.

Discussions on the overall budget from 2014-20 began on Monday 13 May. EU representatives have said a swift agreement will be vital to prevent delay to programmes such as Horizon 2020, set to begin in 2014.

The president of the Committee of the Regions, Ramon Luis Valcárcel, welcomed the announcement of an extra €7.3bn, but emphasized the importance of a second top-up later this year. “Regions and cities need to be reimbursed for the money they have already spent on EU-funded projects,” he said.

However, MEP Ivailo Kalfin referred to the agreement as a “no-go” on Twitter, criticising the finance council for only agreeing to part of the additional budget and making it conditional on the Parliament’s consent on the MFF.

“Ridiculous, these are funds legally due,” he wrote.

Source: http://www.researchprofessional.com/0/rr/news/europe/framework-7/2013/5/eu-agrees-top-up-for-2013-programmes.html

The biggest ICT event in Europe: ICT 2013 – Create, Connect, Grow in Vilnius on 6-8 November, 2013

Posted on May 20, 2013 by Esther KNIGHT

More than 4000 researchers, innovators, entrepreneurs, industry representatives, young people and politicians are expected in Vilnius.

The “ICT 2013 – Create, Connect & Grow” event combines a conference, an exhibition, networking sessions, an investment forum and activities for students and young researchers.

The conference will address a range of issues across the ICT sector varying from cloud computing, broadband and ICT infrastructures to ICT skills, cyber security and long term visions on the future.

The plenary sessions are organised thematically:

Create: Disruptive and inspirational ICT research and innovation;
Connect: Breaking silos, building bridges, exploiting synergies; and
Grow: Start-ups, SMEs and the role of clusters.

Experts will present details on how to participate in the three parts of the Horizon 2020 programme through dedicated sessions on ICT for Excellent science, ICT for Industrial Leadership and ICT for Societal challenges.

The exhibition will showcase latest findings in advanced research, technologies, new systems, innovation in services & business and ICT products just coming to market. The exhibition runs under five themes:

Digitally empowered citizen;
Smart and sustainable cities for 2020+;
Industry and business for tomorrow;
Intelligent connecting intelligence; and
Culture, science and creativity.

Practical information https://ec.europa.eu/digital-agenda/en/ict-2013-practical-information

Establishment of a European Policy Network of National Literacy Organisations

Posted on May 13, 2013 by Esther KNIGHT

Deadline: 29th of August 2013; 12:00 PM

More than one in five 15-year-olds in Europe, as well as many more adults lack basic reading and writing skills. This makes it harder for them to pursue learning and to find a job, and puts them at risk of social exclusion. Aware of this serious problem, the European Commission has taken action to help improve literacy levels in Europe.

The purpose of this call for proposals is to support the establishment of one European policy network to raise awareness, gather and analyse policy information, exchange policy approaches, good practice and promising campaigns and initiatives to promote literacy in light of the Education and Training framework (ET2020) benchmark that the share of low-achieving 15-years olds in reading should be less than 15 % by 2020.

The objectives of this network are to:

develop country specific knowledge;
facilitate the exchange of good practice;
implement awareness-raising initiatives;
cooperate with other institutions and organisations working in the field of literacy both at national and EU level to promote effective literacy policies.

http://ec.europa.eu/education/calls/s0513_en.htm

EU budget discussions update

Posted on May 13, 2013 by ejd2

Official negotiations between the Council of the European Union and the European Parliament regarding the overall EU budget for 2014 to 2020 are finally scheduled to start on Monday 13 May, to try to reach agreement on the budget before the end of the Irish presidency on 30 June. These Multiannual Financial Framework negotiations will continue on the basis of the EUR 960 billion budget agreed at the European Council meeting in February 2013. The negotiations are looking to agree final budgets for the next generation of EU programmes due to be launched in 2014.

European Institute of Innovation and Technology launch PHD programme

Posted on May 10, 2013 by Josephine Beech

The climate arm of the European Institute of Innovation and Technology is launching a PhD programme to evaluate the effectiveness of its workings, as part of efforts to measure the impact of the EIT.

Four PhD studentships will be available to examine how the EIT’s knowledge and innovation communities, or KICs, operate. This will include one project to assess each of Climate-KIC’s three pillars of education, entrepreneurship and innovation, according to Mary Ritter, the chief executive officer of Climate-KIC. “After all, we’re an experiment ourselves, so we need evaluating,” Ritter told Research Europe during an EIT conference in Dublin, on 29 and 30 April.

The announcement is part of a growing effort by the EIT to justify a significantly increased budget from 2014-20, despite reduced public spending. The EIT received €300 million for its pilot phase under Framework 7, but the Commission has proposed to increase this to nearly €3.2 billion under Horizon 2020.

“Outcome results are kind of an obsession in the EIT,” said José Manuel Leceta, the institute’s director. At present, each of the three KICs—on energy, climate and ICT—produces a scoreboard of performance indicators, including subject-specific targets as well as core indicators such as the number of students, new start-ups and products. These are used by the EIT board to award funding, which is allocated each year on a competitive basis.

Since 2010, the three KICs have generated €1.6bn of investment from external sources, and 318 graduates and 108 start-ups have emerged from the programmes, the conference heard. “The figures are reassuring, and we should take this as an encouragement,” Leceta told conference participants. “But it’s not just about outputs, it’s also about long-term impact. This is still a work in progress.”

“Assessing impact is more complex,” said Ritter, particularly in areas such as societal impact and mitigation of climate change where qualitative assessment is needed. “Key performance indicators can only act as a proxy.”

“Far too often, KPIs end up a number game,” said Willem Jonker, the CEO of the ICT Labs KIC.

Another problem is the length of time it takes to achieve measureable results. “The EIT is the last mile of the innovation lifecycle,” said Jari Ahola, the head of service and finance at the EIT. “It’s not for funding basic research, it’s for catalysing innovation—which is an investment.” Many of the start-ups are still at the incubation stage in facilities funded by the KICs.

Climate-KIC’s doctoral assessments could prove useful for consortia preparing communities to be funded under Horizon 2020. The Commission is expected to open bids for KICs on healthy living, raw materials, and food for the future in 2014, with a possible fourth KIC on added-value manufacturing. At least two other KICs, on urban mobility and smart secure societies, are planned for 2018

COST open call: European Science Foundation

Posted on May 7, 2013 by Esther KNIGHT

The European Science Foundation, through its European Cooperation in Science and Technology programme, has launched an open call for proposals. Funding supports networking activities, such as meetings, conferences, workshops, short-term scientific exchanges and outreach activities in the following domains:

•biomedicine and molecular biosciences;

•chemistry and molecular sciences and technologies;

•Earth system science and environmental management;

•food and agriculture;

•forests, their products and services;

•individuals, societies, cultures and health;

•information and communication technologies;

•materials, physics and nanosciences;

•transport and urban development.

Projects must include researchers from at least five COST countries.

Financial support for an action of 19 participating countries is in the range of €130,000 per year, normally for four years, subject to available budget.

Closing date 27 Sep 2013
Deadline information Submissions due by 5pm Brussels time (GMT+1).

See http://www.cost.eu/participate/open_call

If you are interested in this flexible funding opportunity please contact externalprojects@staffs.ac.uk

Staffordshire University Research and Funding Blog

Tag Archives: EU