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| European IST - International Consortium Helps Research Organizations Access EU Funds |
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On January 20-21, 2005 representatives of 11 organizations from 8 European countries (i.e. France, Spain, Hungary, Cyprus, Poland, Romania and Bulgaria) participated in the kick-off meeting of the European IST project which took place in Bucharest, Romania. The first working meeting of the European IST consortium was hosted by the project coordinator – the Romanian company FIMAN Development Services. Bulgaria was represented by ARC Fund and the Bulgarian Association of Software Companies – both partners in this project. The other organizations in the European IST consortium include: ARIES - Associatia Romana pentru Industria Electronica si Software (Romania), AETIC - Asociation de Empresas de Electronicas, Tecnologias Y Telecomunicaciones de Espana (Spain), EUROQUALITY (France), SEPVE – Association of Information Technology Companies of Northern Greece and HELP FORWARD - Foundation for Research and Technology HELLAS (Greece), Institute of Fundamental Technological Research at the Polish Academy of Sciences - IPPT PAN (Poland), Hungarian Association of IT Companies (IVSZ), and Research Promotion Foundation (Cyprus).
The European IST project officially started on January 1, 2005. It is a Specific Support Action (SSA) type project financed from the EU Sixth Framework Program (FP6) funds. The project is targeted at research organizations and companies working in the field of information and communication technologies (ITC). Its goal is to develop cooperation networks at European level and enhance the participation of research organizations from the associated candidate countries (primarily Romania and Bulgaria) in European projects by increasing the number of participant organizations and the value of the attracted funds.
The European IST consortium aims to help research organizations from the participant countries in developing partnerships for accessing European funds. According to the project coordinator, Ms. Flaviana Rotaru of FIMAN DS: “We aim to help al least 50 organizations from ACC in entering consortiums with partners from EU states in order to be able to participate in projects within the IST thematic priority of the FP6 European programme… In practice, we will offer training, consultancy and free information for those who want to develop research projects based on the information technology”.
With over 16 billion Euro in budget, the European FP6 program is the largest R&D-financing program launched in the European Community. Within this program, an important issue is the participation of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) side by side with the traditional research institutions: universities and research institutes. In order to participate within different calls of this program, the willing institutes have to create international consortia, which will submit project proposals for obtaining EU funding. The European IST consortium will thus offer free training, consultancy and information to all those interested in participating in EU-funded research projects.
In terms of specific activities, the project intends to:
- Develop a database with at least 500 research organizations from the accession candidate countries (ACCs) and promote their specific research competencies;
- Train researchers on issues related to FP6 by organizing 10 training sessions in the ACCs with up to 400 participants;
- Promote the FP6 and IST program to the research communities in ACCs through dissemination of 2000 brochures, 2700 leaflets, 1800 CDs, 32 press articles, a project website, monthly e-newsletters, and by organizing a European conference;
- Support researchers in proposals elaboration (up to 50 proposals with ACC partners);
- Facilitate formation of partnerships between organizations from Member States and ACCs by organizing two brokerage events (in Romania and Greece).
Further information on the possibilities created by the European IST project is available from:
Ms. Nadejda Riachi
ISPO Coordinator
ARC Fund
Tel: (02) 986 7887
Email: nadia.riachi@online.bg
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