European Union News - Research & Innovation

CEPOL is taking a further step in supporting training and education of police officers on the European level by launching the “European Police Science and Research Bulletin” as a periodical in electronic format.

The Council of Ministers has given the green light to two new pan-European research programmes. The 'Ambient assisted living' (AAL) programme will draw on information and communication technologies (ICTs) to improve the quality of life of the elderly, while the EUROSTARS programme aims to support the research activities of small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs).

On Monday 23rd of June, the Council of Ministers agreed to provide EUR 100 million from the EU's 7th Framework Programme (FP7) budget to Eurostars, a Research and Development (R&D) programme jointly set up by 31 countries to boost research capacities of Small and Medium-Sized companies (SMEs) in Europe. The EUR 100 million from FP7 will leverage at least EUR 300 million in public funding from the participating countries, resulting in a package of EUR 400 million for financing trans-national research partnerships driven research-performing SMEs in Europe.

On 24th June 2008 The European Spatial Planning Observatory Network (ESPON 2013 Programme) is inviting stakeholders to take part in a survey which aims to gather views from interested parties on identifying future ESPON applied research themes. This is to respond to requests for evidence and knowledge about cities and regions across the European Union.

500 representatives of scientific and academic communities, regulators and industry from across the globe have come together today to share knowledge and promote international collaboration in the testing of food and animal feed for the presence of genetically modified organisms (GMOs).

By 2020, 25% of the EU's population will be over 65. To respond to this growing demographic challenge, the Council of Ministers approved today a Commission plan to make Europe a hub for developing digital technologies designed to help older people to continue living independently at home. The proposal, presented by the Commission on 14 June 2007, will provide some additional €150 million funding to a new European Joint Research Programme, resulting in a total investment of over €600 million.

Europe has started doing better in high-tech research but still has a lot more to do, particularly to capitalise on the results. This is the conclusion of the independent expert report, chaired by former Finnish Prime Minister Esko Aho, that analysed the effectiveness of Information Society research under the EU's 6th Framework Programme for Research and Development.

The University of Pisa (UNIPI), the JRC Institute for Energy (IE), the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing (FER) of Zagreb and the School of Industrial Engineering of Barcelona (ETSEIB) are jointly organizing a seminar and training to transfer competence, knowledge and experience in the area of scaling, uncertainty and 3D coupled code calculations.

The headquarters of the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT) will be hosted by Budapest. A decision taken by the science ministers of all EU Member States on 18 June selected the Hungarian capital over four other bids. The Hungarian government welcomed the agreement and said it was a great success for the country.

A new collaboration agreement between the European Atomic Energy Community, represented by the JRC Institute for Reference Materials and Measurements (IRMM), and the Centre à Énergie Atomique (CEA, FR) will significantly advance cooperative research in domains of common interest: high level nuclear waste minimization and management, safety of advanced reactor concepts and fuel cycles and issues in basic nuclear science.

On the 20th June 2008, the European Commission published in the Official Journal publications of job vacancies in order to fill the position of Executive Director of both the IMI JU (The Innovative Medicines Initiative Joint Undertaking) and the Clean Sky JU (The Clean Sky Joint Undertaking).