Collaborating Projects/Networks

SOLAR-ICT (Development of a knowledge platform to support Euro-Latin American research Partnerships in ICT) is an initiative that aims to highlight the opportunities and potentialities for European and Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) research collaboration in ICT by identifying common development goals and creating deeper strategic cooperation.

SOLAR-ICT focuses on 6 LAC countries: Costa Rica, Ecuador, Guatemala, Paraguay, Peru, and Uruguay. Usually, efforts for strategic cooperation with LAC countries are focused on the larger countries with stronger economies, like Brazil, Argentina, Chile or Mexico, but LAC countries with smaller economies can also denote important and interesting openings for joint Euro-Latin American development policies in ICT. Costa Rica, Ecuador, Guatemala, Paraguay, Peru, and Uruguay, have been identified as six Latin American economies that are developing local IT industries. These six selected Latin American countries present an eclectic combination of economies and span a wide range of the Latin American and Caribbean geographic region, representing a critical portion of the Latin American environment.

The focus on these six targeted countries will provide different views of economic environments in different stages of ICT development that will help uncover the diverse opportunities that can enhance research and development cooperation between EU and the LAC region.

In alignment with the current goals of the European Commission's FP6 and especially with the future goals of FP7, SOLAR-ICT is proposing to reach the goal for Euro-Latin American cooperation in ICT, through a set of highly interdependent activities, which include: the research and study of ICT in six selected Latin American countries; six workshops in Latin America to raise awareness on IST priorities like FP7; and the creation of an integrated EU-LAC electronic platform, focusing on the common technological areas of interest of both regions.

With these objectives, SOLAR-ICT will better identify and create research guidelines within the IST program and can help to strengthen cooperation relationships to launch permanent cooperation patterns and a global strategy.

EPIST (Enhanced participation in IST projects related to eHealth and eInclusion) is a Specific Support Action co-financed by the European Commission IST priority aiming at reducing the digital divide existing in the sector of eHealth and eInclusion between the New Member States (NMS) and Associated Candidate Countries (ACC) on the one hand and "old" EU Member States on the other hand, by enhancing NMS and ACC participation in the IST activity areas of eHealth and eInclusion.

eHealth
To contribute to better health status and well-being of all European citizens, to bring economic and productivity benefits to the health systems and to stimulate growth and competitiveness of the eHealth industry in Europe.

eInclusion
To contribute to the inclusion in the information society of all Europeans by stimulating European R&D and policy efforts in the area of eInclusion, in particular for persons with disabilities and older people, as well as other groups at risk of exclusion due to low levels of education, low digital skills, unemployment and racial issues, geographical circumstances or technical barriers for accessing products and services.

Who can benefit from EPIST?

EPIST will assist:

• organisations from NMS and ACC States in their participation in IST projects in the areas of eHealth and eInclusion and prepare them for future participation in FP7!!
• organisations from "OLD" Member States to get in touch with NMS and ACC organisations for future partnership!!

The project PRO_NMS addresses research organisations, SMEs, IT companies mainly from New Member States (NMS) - Poland, Slovakia, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Hungary and one NIS country - Ukraine - to enlarge the participation in Framework Programmes. These countries will be accompanied by partners from Austria and Germany.

The consortium will reach the potential proposers to 5^th IST Call as well as to future IST actions (FP 7^th) from key IST fields:

• Micro/nano based sub-systems
• Embedded Systems
• ICT for Networked Businesses.

The PRO_NMS consortium will in three of proposed Strategic Objectives (IST research and technology areas common to all partners) facilitate the participation of organisations from the New Member States (NMS) in the activities of IST establish the partnership of research organisations from the NMS with organisations from the other MS.

The main activities carried out by the PRO_NMS Partners:

• Partner search activities in the field of three mentioned Strategic Objectives
• Workshops lead in Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Latvia (for Estonia and Lithuania) and Ukraine
• Organisation of Brokerage Events in Poland, Lithuania and Slovakia where the partners will have the possibility to present their fields of activities and their proposal ideas
• Creation of the Data Base with contacts to organisations operating in the mentioned strategic Objectives
• Consultancy making contacts with all the events participants
• Promotion of Key Players and Potential Project Partners at Brokerage Events and Workshops
• Landscaping in the mentioned Strategic Objectives (will include analysis of the results of previous IST calls)
• To build links with ongoing Projects from mentioned Strategic Objectives.

For further information and assistance, please contact the Project Co-ordinator:

Malgorzata Gliniecka
National Contact Point for Research Programmes of the EU
21 Swietokrzyska Str.
00-049 Warsaw
(48 22) 828 74 83 ext. 294
malgorzata.gliniecka@kpk.gov.pl

The EPISTEP project, supported by European Commission, has the objective to enable SMEs participation in the Seventh Framework Programme (FP7) according to the Economic and Technological Intelligence guidelines with the goal to explore how to enhance their presence in the three European Technology Platforms (ETPs), namely eMobility (mobile communications), Artemis (embedded systems) and Eniac (nano-electronics).

The Small and Medium enterprises (SME) operating in these fields can gain many benefits from Epistep project's free services:

• obtain information about funding opportunities from the European Commission
• learn how to get involved in the European Technological Platform relevant to your business
• identify how to find other partners
• work together with the major providers in Europe
• learn about new markets and ideas

and the EPISTEP project offers to SMEs registered in the EPISTEP DATABASE:

• Connection between SMEs and the three ETPs: Eniac, Artemis and eMobility;
• Support and promotion of SMEs's participation in projects launched in the framework of these ETPs and in the FP7 actions linked to these ETPs;
• Assistance to SMEs in partner-search activities;
• Assistance during brokerage events organized in the sectors of mobile communications, embedded systems and nano-electronics;
• Links to multipliers such as NCPs, IRCs or BICs in order to use them as a channel to address SMEs of not participating countries.

More than 750 European SMEs are now registered in the EPISTEP DATABASE distributed by following sectors: 48% Mobile Communication; 42% Embedded System; 10% Nanoelectronic.

The EPISTEP Consortium is composed of 25 Members from 15 countries: United Kingdom (TARGETING INNOVATION the co-ordinator; NMI; SOA; WIRELESS INNOVATION; Italy (EBA; APRE; CoC TORINO); France (ALMA CONSULTING GROUP); Ireland (ENTERPRISE IRELAND; INVESTNET); Germany (STEINBEIS; ZENIT); Finland (TSEBA; ICT TURKU; TURKU UNIVERSITY). Estonia (ARCHIMEDES); Romania (EUROGRAPH). Bulgaria (URSIT); Israel (EFPC); Austria (FFG; EUTEMA); Lithuania (LIC); Slovakia (STU FEI); Belgium (BEA); Sweden (EU/FoU-rådet). 

@HEALTH is a project, co-financed by the IST programme of the European Commission, with the aim to support and stimulate international cooperation in the eHealth sector among European and Latin American organizations. The project provides web-based and off-line support services to facilitate communication and exchange of knowledge, and to support technology transfer actions and initiatives of joint RTD projects. 

The specific objectives of the @HEALTH project are:

• To promote scientific cooperation in the field of eHealth, through web-based and off-line matchmaking actions
• To stimulate and sustain technology transfer actions and joint RTD projects, supported by public and/or private funding programmes
• To act as an open forum to foster dialogue between eHealth users, technology developers and researchers from different European and Latin American countries
• To provide an exhaustive Data-Base of relevant organisations and competences related to eHealth in Europe and Latin America
• To facilitate sharing of best practices and needs in eHealth, and to support exchange of researchers between Latin American and European organizations.

The aim of the Star-Net project is to be the first step towards the formation and development of a consolidated structure for support of organisations in all New Member States (NMS) and Associated Countries (AC) for participation in IST activities, building on the knowledge, tools and services developed within some of the most relevant IST support actions over the recent years. In this way the Star-Net project will build on two interconnected structures:

• Star-Net Central Unit - The Star-Net project is built around a core group of service providers that gathers 3 experienced organisations in providing support services within the IST field and that are currently coordinating successful SSA projects, namely the Get-In project (Inova+), the Ideal-IST project (DLR) and the Mentor+ project (Euroconsultants SA), for the provision of services and/or development of tools for NMS and AC organisations in order to enhance their participation in IST activities;
• Star-Net Regional Nodes - a network of 13 local nodes, one in each NMS or AC, with strong experience of business support and in-depth knowledge of their local industrial fabric within the IST technologies, that will benefit from the core group services in order to develop and enhance the competences and skills in order to provide continuous support to organisations in their country.

The Star-net project will address the following strategic objectives:

• to set-up a network covering all 10 NMS and 3 AC, sharing a common identity, code of ethics, objectives and work methods;
• to implement a full range of services and tools for the animation, training, information sharing and deployment of the network services, available from a Central Unit built upon the experience and knowledge develop under current on-going IST SSA projects;
• to deploy a common working plan in each NMS and AC, under the supervision of the Central Unit, aiming at addressing a total of 600 organisations and to support at least 120 organisations in NMS and ACC to submit proposals to the IST programme;
• to launch the basis for the continuation of the network from 2007 onwards, with support from the EU structural funds mechanisms in NMS and aiming at self-sustainability through the progressive introduction of a charging policy.

The overall objective of the Hungary for FP6 project is to raise the quantity and quality of research projects with Hungarian participation as partners or coordinators in all types of instruments of the 6^th and 7^th EU Framework Programme. The project focuses on networking and training of major Hungarian organisations taking significant role in the dissemination of FP6 and FP7 related information, furthermore on supporting the Hungarian researchers from academy and industry with tailor-made information, assistance and services. The support activities comprise information dissemination, training activities, promotion of R&D competencies of Hungary, assistance in proposal preparation and screening of research cooperation possibilities. The activities are targeted at the whole Hungarian research community, including all types of potential applicants, academia, research centres, centres of competence, small and medium enterprises (SME) and big companies.  

The IST-BONUS project aims to upgrade the participation of competent organisations in the EU-funded research programmes in two broad areas: e-Business and e-Work.

The project targets competent research organizations (universities, institutes, centers, etc.), innovative SMEs and mid range and large enterprises from the New Member States (NMS) and Accession Candidate Countries (ACC) of the EU.