Workshop “ICT for better living", Brussels 15 April 2013

The EU-LAC Senior Officials Working Group on ICT for Societal Challenges, with the support of the AMERICAS project, are organizing the workshop “ICT for better living: increasing welfare of the societies in Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean”, which will be held in Brussels on the 15th of April, in the context of the Senior Officials Meeting (16th and 17th of April). The workshop will address four topics of ICT for Societal Challenges: e-Inclusion, e-Health, Living Labs and Smart Cities. 

The Senior Officials Working Group on ICT for Societal Challenges was created in 2011 in the frame of the Joint Initiative for Research and Innovation (JIRI), endorsed by the European and Latin American and Caribbean Heads of State and Government at the 2010 Madrid Summit. The main objective of the Working Group is to enhance policy level cooperation on research and innovation in ICT between Latin America, the Caribbean and Europe. 

Objectives of the workshop 

• Share the initiatives of the Working Group to a wider range of experts and stakeholders. 
• Definition of joint research topics in ICT, in the light of future funding opportunities. 
• Explore possibilities of coordination of research initiatives and national funding instruments. 

Who should attend?

The workshop is oriented towards EU and LAC experts, ICT stakeholders, senior officials, funding agency representatives and ICT researchers from the academia and industry. 

Venue: Chilean Embassy in Belgium, Rue des Aduatiques 106, 1040, Brussels.

The agenda can be downloaded here  

To attend the Workshop on ICT for better living on 15 April 2013 in Brussels please register at http://www.eventbrite.com/event/5934110083#

Virtual Info Days for LA presentations on-line

On 16/17 July, Virtual InfoDays for Latin America to share first-hand information about collaborative opportunities with Latin America and the Caribbean in the 2013 work programmes of FP7 were held. These are the last and biggest work programmes in FP7 and are already designed to facilitate the transition towards Horizon 2020. 

All presentations can be found here. Of special interest is the overview of all opportunities by Cornelia Nauen and Paul Vossen and the ICT presentation by our new PO, Vlassios Venner.

Launch of the AMERICAS portal to reinforce ICT cooperation between EU and Latin America

The AMERICAS portal was launched today with the aim to be a central point of reference on ICT cooperation between Latin America and Europe. AMERICAS is the third of a series of EU FP7-ICT funded projects to support sustainable ICT policy dialogues and foster ICT R&D cooperation between the EU and strategic partner countries in Latin America. The AMERICAS project covers all countries with a bi-lateral S&T Agreement with the EU (Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Mexico) plus Colombia.

Key activities foreseen are:
•    One-day Master Class in each Latin America target country (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Mexico and Colombia) to familiarise potential partners with EU funding mechanisms.
•    Two Project Angels summer schools to reinforce the existent Project Angels Network in Latin America.
•    Support of the ICT policy dialogue between the EU and Latin America through an Annual ICT Forum, the first being scheduled for 16 March 2012 in Santiago de Chile.
•    Develop synergies between e-Infrastructures and ICT activities in Latin America

Are you interested in EU-LA relations? Do you need an experienced partner from LA for your innovative ICT projects? Or do you simply want to be up-dated on EU-LA events? Join the AMERICAS community and be and be among the first to know what is happening!

Visit the Americas website

The FP7-ICT Call 9 is now open!

The new call for proposal has been published today (18/01/2012) with a deadline of 12th of April 2012, at 17:00.00 Brussels local time. The indicative budget is 291 million euros. Several objectives of the following Challenges are open: Challenge 2: Cognitive systems and robotics, Challenge 4: Technologies for Digital Content and Languages, Challenge 5: ICT for Health, Ageing Well, Inclusion and Governance, Challenge 8: ICT for Learning and Access to Cultural Resources, Future and Emerging Technologies (FET) and International cooperation -partnership building and support to dialogues-.

For more information:
Download the call fiche
Visit the ICT wiki
Visit the Participants portal

18 new Project Angels successfully trained in FP7 ICT programme and EU funding mechanisms

18 Project Angels from Argentina, Brazil, Cuba, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Bolivia have just received the Project Angels Diploma for their success in the last on-line Project Angels coaching course.

The “Project Angels” network in Latin America is a distinctive contribution of the PRO-IDEAL and the PRO-IDEAL PLUS project that set up a mechanism to train experts (“Angels”) in the understanding of the ICT programme and EU funding rules, thus being able to help potential partners from their countries to become part of a cooperation project. It is an innovative approach to create a sustainable network in the target countries that can provide their acquired special knowledge to potential project partners in their respective countries, and that eventually, will effectively promote the ICT cooperation between the EU and Latin America.

Following the coaching courses and awareness raising events held in the PRO-IDEAL and PRO-IDEAL PLUS target countries – Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Uruguay, Mexico, Colombia, Costa Rica and Cuba – More than 100 candidates to Project Angels have been recruited and coached so as to attain the “Project Angel” certification. After 3 coaching course editions, the network counts now with more than 45 active Project Angels in Latin America.

Future of the Project Angels

The Project Angels coaching courses where part of the Pro-Ideal and Pro-Ideal Plus projects funded by teh EU FP7 ICT programem and which are now going to the end. However, in order to keep the network and continue the collaboration between Latin America and Europe in the ICT R&D field, new initiatives and activities will be offered from 2012 onwards: Project Angels Summer Schools will be organized within a new project “AMERICAS”, Some Project Angels courses will be continued in several Latin American countries (Run by project partners and/or public institutions), a monthly SKYPE call on Q&A will be offered to the active Project Angels from January 2012 onwards and some Project Angels will be invited to join the external advisors network of EMF.

Consult the list of active Project Angels
For more information please contact us

The FP7-ICT Call 8 is now open!

The new call for proposal was published on 20 July 2011 with a deadline of 17th of January 2012, at 17:00.00 Brussels local time. The indicative budget is 787 million euros.

Several objectives of the following Challenges are open: Challenge 1: Pervasive and Trusted Network and Service Infrastructures, Challenge 3: Alternative Paths to Components and Systems, Challenge 4: Technologies for Digital Content and Languages, Challenge 5: ICT for Health, Ageing Well, Inclusion and Governance, Challenge 6: ICT for a Low Carbon Economy, Challenge 8: ICT for Learning and Acc to Cultural Resources, FET and Horizontal actions.

There are already some Info days for this call scheduled in Brussels:
22 September 2011: Trust & Security (Objective ICT-2011.1.4). More

27 September 2011: Cloud Computing, Internet of Services and Advanced Software Engineering (Objective ICT-2011.1.2). More

12 October 2011: FET Proactive Information Day. More

For more information:
Visit the ICT wiki
Visit the Participants portal

Project Angels: Inspiration and Community for ICT Development

The “Project Angels” network in Latin America is a distinctive contribution of the PRO-IDEAL project that set up a mechanism to train experts (“Angels”) in the understanding of the ICT programme and EU funding rules, thus being able to help potential partners from their countries to become part of a cooperation project. It is an innovative approach to the diversity of online and offline activities necessary in order to effectively promote an increase in cooperation between the EU and Latin America. Project Angels form a community of mutually inspiring research and development leaders and are also the source of competence building for those willing to become the future leaders of ICT research and policy dialogue initiatives, able to drive innovation on a transcultural and global basis in European-Latin American agendas.

Following the coaching courses and awareness raising events held in the PRO-IDEAL and PRO-IDEAL PLUS target countries – Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Uruguay, Mexico, Colombia, Costa Rica and Cuba – More than 100 candidates to Project Angels have been recruited and coached so as to attain the “Project Angel” certification.

Alejandra Davidziuk receives the Project Angels diploma award during the ICT 2010 networking session

The Brazilian performance has significantly increased as a result of the policy dialogue, which led to co-sponsorship of the Project Angels hub by the National Social and Economic Development Bank (BNDES). Along with the integration of the Project Angels initiative into the university extension framework (as part of the “Audiovisual Management for Local Development Program” led by the City of Knowledge Research Group), the supporting action involved coaching and successful participation in the submission of projects to the National Research Council (CNPq), São Paulo State Research Foundation (FAPESP) and the Brazilian Internet Steering Committee Research Center (CETIC.br). Private sponsors from the ICT community have also joined the network, such as the Volkswagen Foundation in Brazil.

The reason for the success of the Project Angels methodology is its direct connection to both business and research cultures: the formation of a community supported by the PRO-IDEAL consortium becomes not only an inspirational and testimonial sphere, but conveys a sense of security and confidence that is a necessary condition in order to pro-actively respond to entrepreneurial needs when it comes to copyright, innovation and consortium building challenges and issues.

2011 call for the EUCARINET Travel Grant is now open

The 2011 EUCARINET Travel Grant Scheme call is open from the 15th of April 2011 to the 13th of May 2011.
The aim of the travel grant scheme is to promote exchange between Caribbean and European researchers as well as to encourage contacts between research institutions so that they may explore possibilities for joint participation in the European Commission´s Seventh Framework Program for Research and Technological Development (FP7).The travel grant works as a mechanism to facilitate further networking or even joint proposal writing.

Applications and more information

Applications for the Project Angels coaching course open

Pro-Ideal and Pro-Ideal Plus projects open the applications to participate in the 3^rdedition of the Project Angels coaching course. The new on-line coaching course focused on understanding of the ICT Programme and EU funding mechanisms will start the 1rst April 2011.

More information
If you want to participate please contact us

EU Survey on administrative costs for managing grants under FP7

The Commission organises a survey to assess the administrative costs for managing grants under FP7. Evidence on the administrative effort in FP7 projects is gathered and will be used to assess potential scenarios for simplifying the next EU research and innovation programme. Researchers and project administrators are invited to contribute!

SME Initiative on Digital Content and Languages - call is now open!

The European Commission is launching the SME Initiative on Digital Content and Languages (Challenge 4 of the FP7-ICT Work Programme) to promote SMEs active in the area of digital content and language technologies.

The new SME-DCL Call makes available 35 MEUR of funding for proposals that must include at least two SMEs (and other types of organisations as appropriate for the proposal). The overall goal is to generate added value from trading, pooling and exploiting data (including language resources) in order to produce novel technologies, products and services.

The submission of the proposal must be done in 2 steps (short proposal and full proposal). The deadline for the short proposal is 28 April 2011 and the deadline for the full proposals 28 September (only proposals retained at stage 1 will be able to go to stage 2).

ICT day and interactive workshop in Pachuca (Mexico) 09/10November 2010

The complete presentation material of the ICT Forum in Pachuca (Mexico) which took place on 09/10 November 2010 is now available on the Pro-Ideal website.

For all the information, presentations and pictures please click here.

ICT day and interactive workshop in Medellín -11/12November 2010

The complete presentation material of the ICT Forum in Medellín (Colombia) which took place on 11/12  November 2010 is now available on the Pro-Ideal website.
For all the information, presentations and pictures please click here.

ICT in Chile - Research Areas and Capabilities: preliminary study released

The Chilean National Commission for Scientific and Technological Research (CONICYT) has released a preliminary study entitled ICT in Chile - Research Areas and Capabilities. The study was financially supported by the European Union (through the project CHIEP II).

The document presents preliminary results of an ongoing study, intended to report on the Chilean research capability and working areas in Information and Communication Technologies. The document helps readers to identify Chilean research centres, investigators and research areas, as a way to ease the cooperation in ICT research, development and technology transfer between the European Union and Chile.

The priority areas considered are those specified as research challenges in the work programme 2011 for the ICT theme of the EU FP7 Specific Programme 'Cooperation'

An updated and comprehensive version of the study will be available after December 2010 @ www.chiep.cl.

ICT Work Programme 2011/12 published!

The European Commission released the 2011/12 ICT Work Programme on 19 July 2010. The first calls will be published on 20 July. Call 7 - the main call for 2011 - will be published on 28 September 2010.

PRO-IDEAL project

PRO-IDEAL stands for "Promotion of an ICT dialogue between Europe and America Latina". It is a project that promotes the ICT programme of the 7th Framework Programme of the European Commission.
What does it mean?
The ICT programme funds innovative research project in a broad range of research involving new technologies, e.g. semantic web, RFID, e-health, e0inclusion etc. This programme is open to partners from third countries, such as Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Uruguay, the target countries of PRO-IDEAL. Partners from these countries enjoy the same treatment as European partners, i.e. they receive funding for their activity in the project. Upon specific calls, consortia can submit project proposals.
How can one submit a project proposal?
PRO-IDEAL will familiarise research institutes, companies, public institutions as well as decision makers in the ICT sector with the ICT programme, to enhance participation from the target countries, for the mutual benefit of Europe and the countries of the Cono Sur.

PRO-IDEAL will start on 1 November 2008, and will have its own website at: www.pro-ideal.eu
towards the end of 2008. Until then, news will be published here.