European Union News - Research & Innovation

 The EU-funded SOS ('Safety of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs') project is working to provide medical professionals with guidance on the risks (both cardiovascular and gastrointestinal) associated with certain painkillers. Ultimately, the project results should help to better protect patients against these side effects. 

 New public-private partnerships launched to boost scientific research – long recognised as a stimulus for economic growth by boostering R&D investment in manufacturing, construction and automotive sector.

Everyone who wants to participate in OPEN DAYS 2009 European Week of Regions and Cities is now able to get registered online. The event will take place in Brussels from 5 to 8 October 2009, and it is expected that milliards of people will participate in the 300 events that are expected to be held across the participating countries.

The landscape for ICT (Information and Communication Technology) standardisation has dramatically changed over the last decade. Alongside the traditional standard stetting organisations, specialised and mostly global fora and consortia have become more active and several have emerged as world-leading ICT standards development bodies, such as those responsible for the standards covering the internet and the World Wide Web. This development is not reflected in the EU standardisation policy. Fora and consortia standards cannot currently be referenced, even if they could be of benefit in helping to achieve public policy goals.

The Directorate-General for Information Society and Media (European Commission) will allocate a maximum of 0.3 meuros for the development of an study about flagships initiatives.

The European Commission has just awarded almost 10,000 new grants to be funded by the Erasmus Mundus programme in the academic year 2009-2010. 8,385 students and academics will come to study or teach in Europe, and 1,561 Europeans will spend periods at partner institutions in countries outside Europe.

The Official Journal has published the Council Decisión of 19 January 2009 related to the “Agreement on scientific and technological cooperation between the European Community and the Government of New Zealand” and the “Agreement renewing the Agreement for scientific and technological cooperation between the European Community and the Government of the Republic of India”

A new specially dedicated page has been launched within CORDIS website in order to gather all information, events and highlights focused on security research.

In order to reinforce and upgrade cooperation with the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), the European Commission has signed a new Memorandum of Understanding to cover issues such as reinforced cooperation through joint activities to consolidate and further develop ERA and implement and follow up the European Strategy for Particle Physics, as well as consultations and exchange of information on issues of mutual interest. The text has been published in the OJEU on June 24th.

The Official Journal of the European Union has published the 23.6.2009 a Call for proposals - EAC/26/2009 for the evidence based-policy and practice: call for proposals to develop networks of knowledge brokerage initiatives (2009/C 142/04).

The European Defence Agency’s (EDA) Member States France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Sweden (as lead nation) have signed a Project Arrangement on the MID-air Collision Avoidance System (MIDCAS) at the Paris Air Show on June 17th 2009. This project will also gather companies from different Member States within the  MIDCAS industry consortium.

Brussels hosts the Information Day on the objective 1.2 of the ICT call under the Seventh Framework Programme. This objective aims to make an important contribution to the future of the Internet in terms of service development, management and interoperability in an environment of convergence of IT, telecommunications and media platforms.