Croatia is on track to become the EU’s 28th Member State on 1 July, MEPs have said in their last resolution before it is scheduled to join. They highlighted the strength of Croatia’s democracy, social market economy and capacity to fulfill its membership obligations and called on the last two Member States that still have to approve Croatia’s accession to do so without delay.
For further information please click here.
The next deadline for the submission of preliminary proposals to the COST Open Call is 27 September 2013.
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. Proposals for COST Actions can be submitted to one of nine Domains, including Food and Agriculture, and Earth System Science and Environmental Management, or when highly interdisciplinary and spanning several COST Domains, as Trans-Domain Proposals.
For more information on COST please click here
If you are interested in this opportunity, please get in touch with the external proejcts team at externalprojects@staffs.ac.uk
An independent panel of judges from business and academia will examine and select the three winners who will be announced in spring 2014. Full details of the eligibility and evaluation criteria are available through the competition website, which is indicated below.
The deadline for applications is 15 October 2013.
The winners of the previous edition of the Prize were:
The following conditions need to be fulfilled:
Full details:
http://ec.europa.eu/research/innovation-union/index_en.cfm?section=women-innovators
Youth in Action Programme
Opportunities for UK HEIs
The call is specifically addressed to people working in the youth sector, youth workers and youth leaders, young people themselves (aged between fifteen and twenty-eight years old) and other actors involved in youth organisations and structures. Applicants to the Programme must be non-profit organisations, including NGOs, public bodies at regional or local level and youth councils. HEIs are therefore eligible applicants in so far as they are public bodies. The Youth in Action Programme will not support stand alone education programmes, indeed activities performed as part of formal educational programmes at any level are not eligible for support. It may, however, support extra-curricular activities, such as volunteering and work experience. The following indicative list of activities is included in the call documentation:
Large-scale youth events, seminars, conferences
Activities encouraging the development of partnerships and networks
Activities encouraging the policy dialogue in the field of youth
Information and awareness campaigns in favour of and by young people
Training and capacity-building of youth workers, youth organisations and multipliers
Job-shadowing and long-term mobility for youth workers
Technical Features
Partners: Must involve partners from 4 different countries (including, at least 1 from the EU 27 Member States and 1 more from the EU 27 or the EFTA countries (Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, Switzerland) or pre-accession countries (Croatia; Turkey); plus 2 other partner countries1.
Project Duration: 6 to 12 months
Projects Commence: between 1 October and 31 December 2013
Grant Rate: Up to 80%
Maximum Grant Size: €100,000
Timetable
Deadline for submission of applications: 14 May 2013
Announcement of selection results: August 2013
Projects commence: Earliest 1 October 2013
Link to guidelines: http://eacea.ec.europa.eu/youth/funding/2013/call_action_3_2_en.php
Supporting Independent Living for the Elderly through Robotics invites applications under its pre-commercial procurement SILVER challenge. Funding supports two to three years projects with the aim to develop new innovative robotic solutions to make elderly people more independent from professional homecare. Tenderers should aim at a market introduction of their new solution a maximum of two to four years after the end of the PCP. All legal entities from EU members and associated state countries and with relevant portion of research and development are eligible. The total budget is €2,150,000. The process will be divided in three phases:
•up to eight companies will participate in the design of a solution with a budget up to €350,000 for a period of six months;
•up to four companies will participate in the development of a prototype with a budget up to €720,000 for a period of one year;
•up to three companies will participate in the pre-commercial development with a budget up to €1,080,000 for a period of one year.
Closing date 05 Jun 13
Deadline information Registrations due 5 June; applications due 12 June 2013
http://ted.europa.eu/udl?uri=TED:NOTICE:74279-2013:TEXT:EN:HTML&src=0
For further information contact: externalprojects@staffs.ac.uk
The EU Lifelong Learning Programme runs study visits across Europe to bring together small groups of individuals involved in different aspects of Lifelong Learning. Each visit looks at a specific topic of joint interest. English is the working language for the majority of study visits, which are open to all professionals involved in Lifelong learning including, though not only, academic staff.
The study visits are usually 3-5 days long, offering funding for 100% of travel and flat rate subsistence costs. These are very popular with staff in the University and we have had many people attending them.
They cover a huge range of subject areas. You can browse these in 2013 -2014 Study Visits Catalogue
Examples of some study visits, from the PDF Catalogue are here:
Title of Study visit
| Country | Dates | Page | |
| Sustainable development in a learning region | Slovenia | 16-20 Sept | 52 |
| New opportunities for technical branches and crafts | Czech | 16-20 Sept | 53 |
| How to integrate arts and cultural activities in lifelong learning | Sweden | 11-14 Nov | 59 |
| Energy efficiency and renewable energy: new demands in VET for new jobs | Germany | 23-26 Sept | 63 |
| Understanding teaching and learning at university – A hands-on approach | Germany | 2-6 Dec | 76 |
| Tomorrow’s teaching with virtual media | Denmark | 30 Sept -4 Oct | 90 |
| Science of data quality: brainstorming data mining | Slovakia | 18-20 Sept | 116 |
| Content-based approach and competence acquisition in teaching mathematics and scientific subjects | Italy | 21-25 Oct | 117 |
| Access to university education for disabled students | France | 3-7 Feb (2014) | 119 |
The application form is quite simple and it has a very high success rate.Some of the staff who have attended workshops have gone on to work with the people they met – to submit larger European bids.The deadline for the next round of applications is 11 a.m. GMT March 28th 2013 for visits taking place from September 2013 to February 2014, (and for study visits taking place from March to June 2014, you can apply by 15 October 2013.)
To apply you should read the Guide for applicants and download the online application form
The website with full details of the programme is here .
Please note that you cannot apply for a study visit in the UK
Background
Study visits are organised around 5 themes which reflect the latest policy developments in education and training in Europe:
1. Encouraging cooperation between the worlds of education, training and work
2. Supporting initial and continuous training of teachers, trainers and education
and training institutions’ managers
3. Promoting the acquisition of key competences throughout the education and training
System
4. Promoting social inclusion and gender equality in education and training, including the integration of migrants
5. Developing strategies for lifelong learning and mobility
Further help
If you require further information, just ask the External Projects Team for support externalprojects@staffs.ac.uk
12 Feb 13
MEPs from four political parties have threatened to veto the overall budget package for 2014-20 agreed by the EU Council on 8 February, arguing that it does not provide sufficient support for growth and investment in Europe.
In a cross-party statement published immediately after the deal was announced, MEPs representing the Greens/EFA, EPP, S&D and ALDE parties of the parliament said: “The European Parliament cannot accept today’s deal in the European Council as it is.” According to the parliament leaders, “The core priority behind Parliament’s choices is the ambition to promote growth and investment in the EU… this agreement will not strengthen the competitiveness of the European economy but weaken it.”
On 8 February, European heads of state agreed a compromise on the budget from 2014 to 2020, which must now be approved by the Parliament to enter into force from the beginning of 2014.
In the early hours of Friday morning, during the summit of EU leaders, European Parliament’s president Martin Schulz said the compromise would “not secure the approval” of the parliament. “We cannot agree to cut back on research, innovation and education – these are going to be cut drastically, and this simply doesn’t match the Europe 2020 goals,” he said.
The deal approved by the Council indicates the budget for the Horizon 2020 research programme will be around €69bn, if all unspecified areas of competitiveness spending receive equal reductions. Previously, the Commission said Horizon 2020 should receive €80bn, whilst the parliament has argued the research and innovation programme needs €100bn to provide a much-needed boost to growth and innovation.
Schulz also expressed concerns that the gap between the two levels of spending in the budget—commitments, the upper ceiling for spending, and payments, the amount predicted to be spent—was too large. He said this could only contribute to an ever-increasing structural deficit in the EU budget and risk annual payment crises for programmes such as Horizon 2020 unless budget shortfalls are met by supplementary budgets.
Schulz said he had been informed of plans by leaders of the four main parties to ensure MEPs vote via a secret ballot, which would make it more likely that the parliament would reject the budget proposal, as members would be less likely to be swayed by national influences ahead of upcoming elections. Signatures from 151 MEPs would be needed for the vote to be conducted anonymously, said Schulz.
However, Martin Callanan, the leader of the European Conservatives and Reformists party — a centre-right group dominated by the British Conservative Party — said that a secret vote would constitute a “highly cynical and unaccountable act” on one of the parliament’s most important votes.
Callanan said that undertaking the procedure would undermine the credibility of the European Parliament, arguing that MEPs must remain accountable to their voters and explain why they do not support their national governments.
“If MEPs want to reject an agreement made by their own prime ministers then they should have the courage of their convictions and not try to cower behind a procedural technicality,” said Callanan.
by Laura Greenhalgh
First launched by the European Commission and EIB Group in December 2011, the RSFF has improved its capacity to meet the debt financing needs of universities seeking funding to support research programmes and purpose-built research installations. Universities are now addressed by the RSFF in a unique category among research and innovation promoters.
Interested universities should contact the EIB directly via either its main or UK offices (see links below). There is a continuous application process, and therefore no deadline exists for proposals.
07 Feb 13
Scientists and university groups have launched a late push against cuts to the Commission’s plans for Horizon 2020, ahead of a meeting of EU leaders that could seal the next seven-year budget for research.
The scientists’ group Euroscience, the European Research Council and the League of European Research Universities have made fresh pleas urging decision makers to secure a budget of at least €80 billion for Horizon 2020. In letters to the EU Council, the groups say the money will be vital to ensure the success of the programme, promote economic growth and prevent the departure of talented researchers from Europe.
Their call comes as heads of state prepare to meet in Brussels today to try to reach a compromise on the overall EU budget for 2014-20. In November, inconclusive talks discussed a scenario indicating a Horizon 2020 settlement of around €70bn, despite a pre-emptive campaign by science groups supported by Nobel laureates and a petition of 153,000 signatures.
Peter Tindemans, secretary-general of Euroscience, admits the research lobby may not do any better this time. “I’m not really optimistic, I must confess, because from what I’m hearing, on the key subdivisions of the budget, the agreement is very close,” he says. A senior Commission official also confirmed leaders were close to a compromise on spending allocations, but that other technical areas, such as member-state rebates, remained a problem.
In its letter, Euroscience tells leaders they should give Horizon 2020 €85bn using funds from the two largest budget areas—agriculture and cohesion. Otherwise, the rhetoric by leaders on the importance of research spending “once more threatens to be a matter of lip service,” the letter says.
Euroscience has attempted to gain traction via the Irish presidency of the Council, by briefing on the implications of a €70bn scenario, and it has lobbied the Dutch prime minister through the Royal Netherlands Society of Arts and Sciences.
The ERC has teamed up with the European Round Table of Industrialists, a group of industry chief executives, to make its case. “I am what I call a realistic optimist, so I want to try whatever seems possible until the very end,” says ERC president Helga Nowotny.
However, Nowotny says a fundamental change in the EU system is needed to better support research and innovation. “We are in a structure that has a historical antecedence, with a common agricultural policy but no common R&D policy,” says Nowotny. “Most policymakers believe that research is key for Europe’s future, but if you don’t have the structure in place then we end up where we are now.”
Other Brussels sources have told Research Europe that national leaders will struggle to justify increased spending on research to their governments, in part because the competitive nature of the funding allocation means they cannot quantify how much they will get back.
A senior Commission official points out that “there is no unconditional support for Horizon 2020” among member states. “France is unconditionally for agricultural subsidies. The Group of 12 are unconditionally for structural funds. The UK is for Horizon 2020, but … there always has to be a ‘but’.”
Kurt Deketelaere, secretary-general of Leru, says the outlook for Horizon 2020 could be even more bleak. At a meeting with Scottish university officials on 29 January, he said he fears extra commitments to large projects could subtract as much as €15bn from it—leaving just €55bn for the work streams.
According to Deketelaere, money for projects such Galileo, Copernicus and the Iter nuclear fusion reactor will now “probably” be taken from Horizon 2020—leaving the research programme in “a complete mess”. However, others believe that there will be a ring-fenced allocation of €12.8bn for the three projects, as included in the latest document being discussed by the Council.
If leaders do not agree this week, the Commission says it will prepare a budget for 2014 based on this year’s spending plus two per cent inflation.
by Laura Greenhalgh
Culture Programme – Cooperation with third countries (Australia and Canada) –
Deadline 3 May 2013.
The Culture Programme is the EU’s main funding Programme for cultural activities, its overall objective is to:”Enhance the cultural area shared by Europeans, which is based on a common cultural heritage, through the development of cooperation activities among cultural operators, with a view to encouraging the emergence of European citizenship’
The Programme has three specific objectives:-
Purpose of this call for proposals
This call for proposal seeks transnational projects involving exchanges of artists and/or works or the promotion of intercultural dialogue between Europe and Australia; or Europe and Canada. At least 50% of the project activities are expected to take place in either Australia or Canada. It is open to a wide range of artistic, cultural and creative disciplines, including the following:-
The programme supports all cultural operators including: Universities, research centres, theatres, museums, professional associations, public authorities etc. The budget for this strand for 2013 is €2.65m, it is expected that approximately eight projects will be selected for support. Opportunities for UK HEIs:
More info can be found Here