The Commission announced that it will contribute 30 € million to two new and important joint programming activities involving a substantial number of Member States (MS) on the 4 January 2008 in Brussels. These activities will ultimately result in a considerable number of MS organising joint calls in the areas of metrology and the Baltic sea. These actions, known as ERA-NET Plus and developed under the Seventh Framework Programme (FP7), will help to structure the European Research Area and enhance the scale of Europe's common research efforts. iMERA-Plus, bringing together 32 national metrology institutions, will receive €21m from FP7, with Member States contributing a further €42 to carry out research into precise and reliable measurements. The European Commission will also allocate €9 million to BONUS+, a research programme to develop an ecosystem-based approach to management of the Baltic Sea, which will involve 8 Member States that border the Baltic, and Russia. The countries concerned will contribute a further €18.7 million.

The ERA-NET scheme is designed to develop and strengthen the coordination of national and regional research programmes through two specific actions:

• 'ERA-NET actions' - providing a framework for actors implementing public research programmes to coordinate their activities e.g. by developing joint activities or by mutually supporting joint calls for trans-national proposals. 'ERA-NET Plus actions' - providing, in a limited number of cases with high European added value, additional EU financial support to facilitate joint calls for proposals between national and/or regional programmes.
• Under the ERA-NET scheme, national and regional authorities identify research programmes they wish to coordinate or open up mutually. The participants in these actions are therefore typically ministries or regional authorities defining research programmes or research councils or other research funding agencies managing research programmes.

For more information on the ERA-NET Plus Actions please visit the official FP7 website.