Examples of EU Research Programmes

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Information Society Technologies: A European Research Priority

In the FP6, €3.6 billion of funding has been prioritised for IST research (20% of the FP6 budget), making it the main source of EU funding for IST research projects. The IST priority aims to:

These research activities build on Europe's key strengths, particularly in communication technologies and embedded software and systems. This vision places the individual at the centre of future developments for an inclusive knowledge-based society for all. The focus is on the future generation of technologies in which computers and networks will be integrated into the everyday environment, rendering accessible a multitude of services and applications through easy-to-use interfaces.

FP6 to IST is 14 to 3.6

Figure 1 :: Amount of FP6 budget earmarked for IST research

This research effort will therefore reinforce and complement the eEurope Action Plan 2005 objectives and look beyond them to the i2010 goals of bringing IST applications and services to everyone, residential, educational and commercial.

eEurope Action Plan 2005

eEurope 2005 logo

The eEurope 2005 Action Plan was launched at the Seville European Council in June 2002 and endorsed by the Council of Ministers in the eEurope Resolution of January 2003

The objective of this Action Plan was to provide a favourable environment for private investment and for the creation of new jobs, to boost productivity, to modernise public services, and to give everyone the opportunity to participate in the global information society. eEurope 2005 was therefore aimed at stimulating secure services, applications and content based on a widely available broadband infrastructure.

The eEurope action plan is based on two groups of actions which reinforce each other. On the one hand, it aims to stimulate services, applications and content, covering both online public services and e-business; on the other hand it addresses the underlying broadband infrastructure and security matters.

Focuses attention on and pushes forward progress in seven eEurope policy priorities:-

Broadband

Widespread and affordable broadband access is essential to realise the potential of the Information Society.

Its aim was the development and delivery of services and applications such as e-Health, e-Business, e-Government and e-Learning, making broadband crucial to European growth and quality of life in the years ahead.

e-Business

The term 'e-business' covers both e-commerce (buying and selling online) and the restructuring of business processes to make the best use of digital technologies.

e-Business helps eliminate the barrier of distance, allowing all companies to trade world-wide from a single website.An 'eCommerce enabled' Single Market could, therefore, provide European firms with a critical boost to their competitiveness. This is particularly the case for Europe's Small and Medium Sized Enterprises, which normally find it difficult to trade beyond their region or country, and can also face difficulties adopting new technologies.

e-Government

The e-Government Observatory has just published a report on "e-Government in the Member States of the European Union", providing the most extensive sum of information to date on the advancement of e-government in the enlarged EU. This report is the compilation of the e-Government Observatory Factsheets for the 25 EU Member States.

Factsheets for the 25 EU Member States available from europa.eu.int/idabc/egovo

e-Health

The Information Society offers new possibilities for improving almost every aspect of healthcare, from making medical systems more powerful to providing better health information to everyone.

The impact of e-Health is, therefore, as diverse as the sector itself, encompassing the quality of health-related Web content, patient data security, 'telemedicine' technologies, tackling administrative headaches for hospital staff, doctors and patients, and much more.

e-Inclusion

eEurope 2005 carries the ambitious objective of achieving "an Information Society for All". This means overcoming social and geographical differences, ensuring an inclusive digital society that provides opportunities for all, thus minimising the risk of 'digital divide'.

e-Learning

In a world increasingly based on knowledge and information, education and training are put at the core of the European agenda.e-Learning is described as the integration of advanced information and communication technologies (ICT) into the education system.

e-Learning can make a significant contribution, with both workers and organisations transforming the way they learn, interact and work. Moreover, e-Learning can promote social integration and inclusion, opening access to learning for people with special needs and those living in difficult circumstances such as marginalised groups, migrants and single parents.

Security

As the Information Society becomes more important to business and society, ensuring the security of both the infrastructure itself and the information that runs through it is critical.

In order to serve the Information society, the information we transmit and store should be kept confidential.Internet users today face threats from attacks such as hackers and viruses, 'always on' broadband connections, for example, can increase the vulnerability of consumer and business IT systems, while new wireless applications could open new opportunities for virus authors and hackers.

Until security issues are addressed, full development of the information society can not take place.Security is therefore a key component of the Commission's vision for the Next Generation Internet and is one of the eEurope 2005 six policy priorities.

Further actions

eEurope was complemented by eEuropeplus, which was launched by EU Candidate Countries in 2001 and with the end of the programme in 2005, is being followed up by i2010, announced by the Commission on 1 June, 2005.

For more information please visit europa.eu.int/information_society/activities/index_en.htm

i2010

i2010 logo

i2010 (European Information society in 2010) is an initiative which will provide an integrated approach to information society and audio-visual policies in the EU.It covers regulation, research, and deployment and promotes cultural diversity. It will look for fast and visible results, building on the optimistic outlook for ICT industries and markets. It will encourage fast growth built around the convergence at the levels of networks, services and devices.Its objective will be to ensure that Europe's citizens, businesses and governments make the best use of ICTs in order to improve industrial competitiveness, support growth and the creation of jobs and to help address key societal challenges.

In its i2010 initiative, the Commission outlines three policy priorities:

i2010 is the first Commission initiative to be adopted under the EU's renewed Lisbon strategy. It focuses on the most promising sector of the EU economy: ICT account for 40% of Europe's productivity growth and for 25% of EU GDP growth.

For more information visit europa.eu.int/information_society/eeurope/i2010/index_en.htm

eContent Programme

eContent is a market oriented programme which aims to support the production, use and distribution of European digital content and to promote linguistic and cultural diversity on the global networks. It intends to reach its goal by supporting the growth of a healthy and competitive EU digital content industry and exploit the opportunities created by new technologies.

The Council adopted the eContent programme on the 22 December 2000 for a period covering the years 2001 to 2005, with a budget of €100 million.

The programme

The programme is based on three lines of action:-

The eContent programme is focused on the need of European Union businesses and citizens to access and use high-quality eContent suited to their particular needs. This is a large task requiring European content industries to be able to compete globally, stimulate economic growth and contribute to employment creation. This will be done while safeguarding a balanced social and cultural development of EU citizens. In addition, eContent is concerned with easing the process of economic and social integration of the candidate countries into Europe's Information Society.

The programme itself supports:-

The Beneficiaries

Digital content players in Europe of all sizes:-

EContentplus Programme

On 28 February 2005, the EU Council reached political agreement on the eContentplus Programme, which aims to support the development of multi-lingual content for innovative, on-line services across the EU.

The 4-year programme (2005-08), proposed by the European Commission in February 2004, will have a budget of €149 million to tackle the fragmentation of the European digital content market and improve the accessibility and usability of geographical information, cultural content and educational material.

The Programme will address specific market areas where development has been slow: geographic content (key for the public sector), educational content, cultural, scientific and scholarly content.The Programme also supports EU wide co-ordination of collections in libraries, museums and archives and the preservation of digital collections so as to ensure availability of cultural, scholarly and scientific assets for future use.

For further information visit www.cordis.lu/econtent/


Safer Internet plus Programme

This is billed as the EU's response to illegal and harmful content on the Internet. The Safer Internet plus programme aims to promote safer use of the Internet and new online technologies, particularly for children, and to fight against illegal content and content unwanted by the end-user, as part of a coherent approach by the European Union.The 4-year programme (2005-08) will have a budget of €45 million to combat illegal and harmful internet content. The new programme also covers other media, such as videos, and explicitly addresses the fight against racism, and also unwanted e-mails. It will focus more closely on end users: parents, educators and children.

Actions

The programme has four main actions:

The coverage of the Safer Internet plus programme extends to new online technologies, including mobile and broadband content, online games, peer-to-peer file transfer, and all forms of real-time communications such as chat rooms and instant messages primarily with the aim of improving the protection of children and minors. Action will be taken to ensure that a broader range of areas of illegal and harmful content and conduct of concern are covered, including racism and violence.


The Safer Internet plus programme is a successor to the Safer Internet Action Plan, which ran form 1999-2004 with a total budget of€38.3 million.

For more information visit europa.eu.int/information_society/activities/sip/programme/index_en.htm

Safer Internet Ä48m, eContent Ä100m, eContentplus Ä149m

Figure 2 :: Budgets of various IST programmes (in €Millions)

CERIF (Common European Research Information Format) and EuroCRIS (European Current Research Information Systems)

CERIF 2000

CERIF 2000 is a set of guidelines meant for everyone dealing with research information systems. The CERIF 2000 guidelines are developed by a group of experts from the EU Member States and associated Member States, under the co-ordination of the European Commission.CERIF 2000 is an update of the first CERIF manual, which was published in 1991.

Aim

The ambitions of CERIF 2000 are to stimulate European-wide access to ongoing research information, and its exploitation.CERIF 200 believes that sharing information among the research community gives opportunities for exchange of skills and knowledge, and for bringing both together.

CERIF 2000 is created:-

EuroCRIS

Due to limited resources at the European Commission for the follow up of the CERIF2000 initiative, the core implementation effort of the latter is now in the hands of EuroCRIS (the European Current Research Information Systems).

EuroCRISwas established in Europe in 1991 to be the internationally recognised point of reference for all matters relating to CRIS: Current Research Information Systems. EuroCRIS has developed into a platform of technical and scientific experts, who in a schedule of biannual meetings and biennial conferences discuss the latest developments and decide on action plans and programs. Membership is open to any organisation or individual who is interested in CRIS, without any geographical limitations.

With the increasing workload and complexity of tasks, the internationalisation of research, the increasing mobility of researchers, the implementation of the European Research Area and the increasing importance of research information, a more formal organisational structure of a professional association has been established to meet the aims set out below.

Aims

EuroCRIS has as its main goal to act as a single forum for all interested individuals and organisations concerning all matters related to the use of information technology in the conduct of research information systems. EuroCRIS supports standardised streamlined information exchange across all aspects of the CRIS lifecycle as follows:

More information from www.euroCRIS.org

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