FUNDS IN THE BIOTECHNOLOGY SECTOR

DEADLINE: FEBRUARY  1^ST, 2011.

BENEFICIARIES:

SMEs or organisations based in the following countries/regions:

• Austria
• Belgium represented by the regions of: Flanders, Wallonia, 
• Finland
• Germany
• Hungary
• Israel 
• Italy
• The Netherlands
• Spain represented by the regions of: Basque Country, Catalonia, Madrid, Navarra.

Funding is intended for innovative biotech-projects in the fields of:

·         Industrial research & development

·         Applied research

ACTIVITIES:

The strategic objective of the call is to foster the competitiveness of Europe’s biotechnology industry by supporting research intensive SMEs and their strategic partnerships.

Funding possibilities will be offered to excellent and innovative industrial research and development and applied research projects.

All  projects should be designed according to the following principles:

• All project partners contribute to, and benefit from, an equitable and balanced cooperation.
• Results of collaborative projects are shared through a controlled process that protects and allocates any intellectual property rights used and established during cooperation.
• Projects must be in the field of biotech irrespective of the core business of the applicants
• Projects must be technologically innovative and create economical value. They may involve any kind of work up to and including the pre-competitive phase (i.e.up to the first prototype)

SUPPORT FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF ON- AND OFF-LINE INTERACTIVE WORKS

DEADLINE: APRIL 11^Th, 2011.

One of the objectives of the programme is to promote, by providing financial support, the development of production projects intended for European and international markets presented by independent European production companies.

METHOD OF FINANCING: reimbursement of 50% of eligible costs

The minimum grant is 10,000€. The maximum grant is 150,000€.

BENEFICIARIES:

This notice is aimed at European companies whose activities contribute to the attainment of the above objectives, and in particular to independent production companies.

Applicants must be established in one of the following countries:

— the 27 countries of the European Union,

— the EEA countries, Switzerland and Croatia.

ACTIVITIES:

The activities for the following interactive works are eligible:

The concept development (up to a first playable application) of digital interactive content complementing an audiovisual project (drama, creative documentary or animation) specifically developed for at least one of the following platforms:

•  Internet,
• PC,
• console,
• handheld device,
• interactive television.

This digital content must present:

• substantial interactivity with a narrative component,
• originality, creativity and innovation against existing works,
• European commercial potential.

Only the following types of audiovisual project intended for commercial exploitation can be complemented by the submitted interactive work:

• a drama of at least 50 minutes (the total length of the series in the case of a series),
• a creative documentary of at least 25 minutes (length per episode in the case of a series),
• an animation of at least 24 minutes (the total length of the series in the case of a series)

EC launched an Open Access Infrastructure for Research in Europe project

The European Commissioni has launched the project “Open Access Infrastructure for Research in Europe” (OpenAIRE), the purpose of which is to encourage and support free online access to knowledge generated by researchers within grants from the Seventh Framework Programme and the European Research Council.

OpenAIREwill provide support structures for researchers and an electronic infrastructure to handle peer-reviewed articles. It also aims to establish cooperation with communities to deposit access and manage research datasets.

http://www.openaire.eu/

FORTHCOMING CALL: SME INITIATIVE ON DIGITAL CONTENT AND LANGUAGES

DEADLINE: First stage (short proposals) 28 April 2011

TARGET OUTCOMES

a) Bootstrapping a data economy:

·         To maximise reuse of digital content resources by making them easy to find, evaluate and integrate.

·         To foster reuse of digital content resources by providing guarantees and fair incentives for their creators and maintainers.

·          To develop robust and highly usable new services demanded by citizens and businesses (especially SMEs) and create value by correlating independently produced datasets or extracting valuable information not foreseen by the original data producer.

b) Community building and best practices: Produce rigorous studies on the actual or projected economic impact of digital resources pooling as a function of well defined parameters such as the size of resources, user populations, socio-economic sectors, and software stacks adopted.

c) Sharing language resources:

·         To make more effective the acquisition of language resources exploiting automated and/or collaborative means

·         To contribute to an open exchange place based upon the concerted pooling of resources having a significant potential for reuse.

·         To show the concrete impact of using, combining or repurposing the above resources in a given use context, in terms of improved functionality, maintainability, scalability and portability of new systems and technologies.

d) Building consensus and common services: Actions under this heading must help establish mechanisms, forums and support services to (i) coordinate efforts, reach consensus, mobilise the community at large, and (ii) set up and manage the planned electronic trading facilities.

 

If interested, please write to  infonetwork@igcsas.it

HELP TO IMPROVE SOSRESEARCHERS

Dear all,

 in order to give you more information you are interested in I'll be pleased to receive comments from you about your research interests. Knowing  in which country you work will be a plus.

Remember that if you want to apply for a grant I can look for the other partners (SMEs, industrial partners, Universities etc..) needed. 

Any suggestion on how to improve this blog is more than welcome.

Thank you everyone.

SENIOR RESEARCHERS GRANT- PHYSICAL SCIENCES AND ENGINEERING

DEADLINE:9 February 2011

MAIN AREAS OF INTERVENTION:

• Mathematics: all areas of mathematics, pure and applied, plus mathematical foundations of computer science, mathematical physics and statistics
• Fundamental constituents of matter: particle, nuclear, plasma, atomic, molecular, gas, and optical physics
• Condensed matter physics: structure, electronic properties, fluids, nanosciences
• Physical and analytical chemical sciences: analytical chemistry, chemical theory, physical chemistry/chemical physics
• Materials and synthesis: materials synthesis, structure-properties relations, functional and advanced materials, molecular architecture, organic chemistry
• Computer science and informatics: informatics and information systems, computer science, scientific computing, intelligent systems
• Systems and communication engineering: electronic, communication, optical and systems engineering
• Products and processes engineering: product design, process design and control, construction methods, civil engineering, energy systems, material engineering
• Universe sciences: astro-physics/chemistry/biology; solar system; stellar, galactic and extragalactic astronomy, planetary systems, cosmology, space science, instrumentation
• Earth system science: physical geography, geology, geophysics, atmospheric sciences, oceanography, climatology, ecology, global environmental change, biogeochemical cycles, natural resources management

Applicants for the  ERC Advanced Grant are expected to be active researchers and to have a track-record of significant research achievements in the last 10 years.

Minimum number of participants: At least 1 independent legal entity established in one of the Member States, or one of the associated countries.

SENIOR RESEARCHERS GRANT- SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES

DEADLINE: 6 April 2011

MAIN AREAS OF INTERVENTION:

• Individuals, institutions and markets: economics, finance and management
• Institutions, values, beliefs and behaviour: sociology, social anthropology, political science, law, communication, social studies of science and technology
• The Human Mind and its complexity: cognition, psychology, linguistics, philosophy and education
• Cultures and cultural production: literature, visual and performing arts, music, cultural and comparative studies
• The study of the human past: archaeology, history and memory. 
• Environment, space and population: environmental studies, demography, social geography, urban and regional studies

Applicants for the  ERC Advanced Grant are expected to be active researchers and to have a track-record of significant research achievements in the last 10 years.

Minimum number of participants: At least 1 independent legal entity established in one of the Member States, or one of the associated countries. 

 

SENIOR RESEARCHERS GRANTS - LIFE SCIENCES

DEADLINE: MARCH 10th 2011

MAIN AREAS OF INTERVENTION: 


Molecular and Structural Biology and Biochemistry: molecular biology, biochemistry, biophysics, structural biology, biochemistry of signal transduction 


Genetics, Genomics, Bioinformatics and Systems Biology: genetics, population genetics, molecular genetics, genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, metabolomics, bioinformatics, computational biology, biostatistics, biological modelling and simulation, systems biology,  genetic epidemiology 


Cellular and Developmental Biology: cell biology, cell physiology, signal transduction, organogenesis, developmental genetics, pattern formation in plants and animals 


Physiology, Pathophysiology and Endocrinology: organ physiology, pathophysiology, endocrinology, metabolism, ageing, regeneration, tumorigenesis, cardiovascular disease, metabolic syndrome 


Neurosciences and neural disorders: neurobiology, neuroanatomy, neurophysiology, neurochemistry, neuropharmacology, neuroimaging, systems neuroscience, neurological disorders, psychiatry 


Immunity and infection: immunobiology, aetiology of immune disorders, microbiology, virology, parasitology, global and other infectious diseases, population dynamics of infectious diseases, veterinary medicine 


Diagnostic tools, therapies and public health: aetiology, diagnosis and treatment of disease, public health, epidemiology, pharmacology, clinical medicine, regenerative medicine, medical ethics 


Evolutionary, population and environmental biology: evolution, ecology, animal behaviour, population biology, biodiversity, biogeography, marine biology, ecotoxicology, prokaryotic biology 


Applied life sciences and biotechnology: agricultural, animal, fishery, forestry and food sciences; biotechnology, chemical biology, genetic engineering, synthetic biology, industrial biosciences; environmental biotechnology and remediation;

The European Research Council (ERC) is particularly keen to encourage excellent proposals which involve the establishment of a new research activity in the EU or the associated countries by a Principal Investigator who is moving from a third country into the EU or the associated countries.

Applicants for the  ERC Advanced Grant are expected to be active researchers and to have a track-record of significant research achievements in the last 10 years.

European Research Council (ERC) starting grant holder wins Nobel physics prize

A recipient of one of the European Research Council’s (ERC) first grants, Konstantin Novoselov, has won the Nobel Prize in Physics for his research on graphene, a new carbon material that is expected to have widespread application in electronics and photonics. 

Novoselov, who was awarded his ERC Starting Grant in 2007, becomes one of the youngest Nobel Prize winners, at the age of 36. The prize was awarded jointly to Novoselov and his fellow Russian Andre Geim, with whom he carried out the research at Manchester University. Geim has been funded by the UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council for the past ten years, most recently being awarded a £5 million grant in October 2009.

more at:http://bulletin.sciencebusiness.net/

To learn more about ERC grants write to us.

PARTNER SEARCH FOR EU FUNDED PROJECT

Proposal abstract
 

The objective of this project is the realization of a secure, flexible and dynamic mechanism using risk-based methodologies, capable of responding to threats and vulnerabilities and to adapt dynamically to the changes in the operating conditions, business processes or use practices, through the management of the entire vulnerability life cycle.
Besides the technological aspect, the project will give adequate attention to usability and availability aspects, and will thus involve multi-disciplinary research activities, experiments or demonstrations in realistic, complex and scalable sceneries and contexts
Thanks to the VMS, organizations will be able to measure, in a faster and more accurate way, the level of risk connected to ES device and ICT infrastructure.
Using the VMS, the organization will make ES more secure, reliable and resistant to attacks and operative malfunctioning, improving Security, Privacy and Dependability (SPD)


Risk management will be performed through the following logical steps:
1. determination of objectives, alternatives and constraints;
2. evaluation of alternatives, identification and resolution of risks eg., developing a prototype to validate the requirements;
development and testing of the next level of the product: evolutionary model, if the risks involving the user interface are dominant; cascade model, if the greater risk is represented by the integrability of the system; transformational model, if security is the most important issue;
3. Planning of the next phase, deciding whether to continue with another cycle of the spiral or not.

for further info: infonetwork@igcsas.it

New milestone for ERC project as driverless vehicle reaches China

After a 13,000 kilometre, three month journey through Europe and Asia, unmanned vans powered by green energy and funded by the European Research Council have crossed the Chinese border.

The expedition started on July 20 in Italy, with the goal of reaching the World Expo in Shanghai on 28 October, where a demonstration will take place at the European Union/Belgian Pavilion.

The Intercontinental Autonomous Challenge is part of a research project on autonomous driving funded mainly by the ERC, which aims to improve road safety.

“We have now covered more than two thirds of the route. When it comes to the technology of the vehicles it went smoothly all-in-all,” said lead researcher Alberto Broggi, of Parma University’s Vislab. “We are happy about the test and the great amount of data we are acquiring for further processing at the end of the trip. We had to intervene manually only on limited occasions, for example in the traffic jams of Moscow, when passing a toll station or in case of really adverse weather.”

The convoy, which includes back-up vehicles, has travelled about 6,500 km in 80 days and passed the border between Kazakhstan and China. The rest of the trip will take an estimated 17 days, through varied Chinese landscape, including the Gobi Desert.:

More: http://bulletin.sciencebusiness.net/ebulletins/showissue.php3?page=/548/6635/20117&rec=0

Interested in ERC grants for individual researchers? Write to us!

Bidding opens on 2011 €780M information technology funding

The European Commission has announced the largest annual budget in 25 years of backing information technology research, opening the bidding for 2011 funding of €780 million at ICT 2010, the biennial showcase of the fruits of its investment in the field, held in Brussels this week.

More is to come, since the Commission has committed to increasing the ICT research budget by a further 20 per cent each year up to the end of Framework Programme 7 in 2013. And speaking at the opening of the conference Neelie Kroes, head of the Digital Agenda, told the 6,000 delegates she will make “a very strong case for even stronger levels of support,” in FP8.

To read more: http://bulletin.sciencebusiness.net/ebulletins/showissue.php3?page=/548/6555/19912
Do you want more information about ICT funds? Write to us!

Innovation Emergency

The European Commission is calling for a ‘collaboration revolution’ to get the public and private sectors working together, as the main plank of its new plan to promote innovation and so create jobs, solve the grand challenges and build an innovation culture to rival that in the US.

The focus for doing this will be European Innovation Partnerships, (EIP) each focused on a specific grand challenge, with concrete goals, driven by a board that will be chaired by one or more commissioners, with ministers from national governments, MEPs, and people from industry, academe and the public sector. Along with acting on the supply side to develop and introduce new products and services, EIPs will be able to act to bring down regulatory barriers, and so smooth the path to market and adoption.

The first partnership, due to get off the ground in 2011, has the objective of extending the health span of EU citizens by an average of two years by 2020. “This will reduce the strains on health budgets and open up new markets,” said Máire Geoghegan-Quinn, Commissioner for research, innovation and science, unveiling the project as a centerpiece of the Innovation Union, one of seven initiatives the Commission is launching as part of its Europe 2020 economic strategy.

To read more: http://bulletin.sciencebusiness.net/ebulletins/showissue.php3?page=/548/art/19983 

If you want to know more about these new calls write to us!

EU aims to make data access and planning a part of research funding

The European Commission, now planning its next big cycle of research funding, is considering giving greater importance to the way researchers manage, share, store and gain access to scientific data.  

EU Vice President Neelie Kroes said, “We need to ensure that every future [research] project funded by the EU has a clear plan on how to manage the data it generates. Such plans should foster openness and economies of scale, so that data can be re-used many times rather than duplicated.”

With plans for the next big Framework research programme FP8 now being drafted, Kroes said, “We should all should strive to make real progress towards open access to the scientific data produced within the EU’s framework programme research projects.” 

To read the full article http://bulletin.sciencebusiness.net/ebulletins/showissue.php3?page=/548/6589/20007

SUSTAINABLE SURFACE TRANSPORT

DEADLINE: 2 December 2010

BENEFICIARIES:

For SME targeted Collaborative Projects the minimum conditions to participate are: at least independent legal entities, each of which is established in a Member State or Associated Country, and no 2 of which are established in the same Member State or Associated Country.

MAIN AREAS OF INTERVENTION:

Ensuring the safety of Nanotechnology: 

New methods for measuring, detection and identification of nanoparticles in products and/or in the environment

Cross-cutting and enabling R&D: 

Tools and methodologies for imaging structures and composition at the nanometre scale

Enabling Research and Development: 

Research and innovation for advanced multifunctional ceramic materials

Integration of technologies for industrial applications: 

Advanced textiles for the energy and environmental protection markets

For further information, please contact infonetwork@igcsas.it

RESEARCH FUNDS FOR SMEs

DEADLINE: DECEMBER 8th, 2010.

BENEFICIARIES:

• SME participants: at least three independent SME participants, established in three different Member States (MS) or Associated countries (AC).

+

• RTD performers: at least two RTD performers, from any country, independent from any other participant. RTD performers are legal entities carrying out research and technological development activities for the benefit of SME participants. Examples of RTD performers are universities, research organisations and industrial companies, including research performing SMEs.

In addition, other enterprises and end-users may participate by making a particular contribution to the project and in solving specific problems or needs of the SME participants involved, though not in a dominant role. 

ACTIVITIES:

The scheme can be carried out in the entire field of science and technology. The activities to be carried out include:

• research and technological development activities;
• demonstration activities;
• management activities;
• activities directly related to the project’s objectives;
• dissemination activities;
• training of researchers and key staff

 

For further information, please contact infonetwork@igcsas.it

EU FUNDS FOR COOPERATION IN THE ICT AND NANOSCIENCES SECTORS

DEADLINE: DECEMBER 2^ND, 2010

TOPICS CALLED:

NMP – Nanosciences, nanotechnologies, Materials and new Production

•  The eco-factory: cleaner and more resource-efficient production in manufacturing
• Cooperative machines and open architecture control system
• Robots for automation of postproduction and other auxiliary processes
• High-tech solutions in the production processes for customised healthy, green and safe consumer products
• Towards zero-defect Manufacturing
• Manufacturing chains for nanophased component and coatings

ICT – Information and Communication Technologies

• Virtual Factories and Enterprises
• Digital factories: Manufacturing design and product lifecycle
• Digital factories: Manufacturing design and product lifecycle 

Target audience: research organizations, universities, industry, including SMEs, potential end-users) established in different EU Member States or Associated countries (Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Faroe Islands, FYR Macedonia, Iceland, Israel, Liechtenstein, Montenegro, Norway, Serbia, Switzerland and Turkey); furthermore, participation is open to any International European Interest Organisation or any legal entity established in an FP7 International Cooperation Partner Country.