Newsletter #5, September 2009

TransCoSME Newsletter

Practical Guide to EU Funding Opportunities for Research and Innovation

This Practical Guide was conceived in order to help potential beneficiaries identifying the most appropriate funding scheme for their purposes. The guide gives a short overview of the following programmes:

Cohesion policy which is funded through the Structural Funds and Cohesion Fund
Research Framework Programme
Competitiveness and Innovation Framework Programme)

It provides a concise description of the three funding sources, explains how they can be combined and provides policy makers with advice on setting up mechanisms at the national and regional levels to foster co-ordinated access to them.

More info:
http://cordis.europa.eu/eu-funding-guide/home_en.html

New Guide for SMEs

European Commission, DG Enterprise has issued a "Guide for Training in SMEs". This newly published handbook is aimed at staff and managers in Small and Medium Enterprises.
Skills and training developments are necessary for SMEs to remain competitive. But they face several challenges, including institutional and financial obstacles, to enable training sessions to their staff. This guide provides information on how business can effectively tackle issues and challenges by providing skills training for their staffs. It also includes 50 good practices case studies involving companies across Europe.

More info:
http://ec.europa.eu/enterprise/newsroom/cf/itemlongdetail.cfm?item_id=3264

Research for SMEs

The new call (FP7-SME-2010-1) was published at 30th of July 2009 and remains open until the 03rd of December at 17.00 h (Brussels local time). The indicative budget amounts to approx.136 million €, which means to be the highest budget ever spent within this funding instrument. It is expected that the increased budget will positively influence the success rate which was around 15% in the last calls. The call is open to all research fields.

If there are any questions please contact your National Contact Point SME. You will find the contact data here: www.ncp-sme.net.

For further information about the above mentioned call please follow the link:
http://cordis.europa.eu/fp7/dc/index.cfm?fuseaction=UserSite.CapacitiesDetailsCallPage&call_id=216

New Partner Search Tool Shows First Results

As mentioned in a previous newsletter, the network of the National Contact Points SME launched a new Partner Search Tool at its homepage www.ncp-sme.net in spring 2009. The tool demonstrated its viability and effectiveness under the call “Research for SME-Associations” which was being closed in May 2009. An example of a successful partner identification can be found at http://www.ncp-sme.net/press/success-stories

Research Executive Agency became autonomous

On 15 June, the Research Executive Agency (REA) was officially granted its administrative and operational autonomy by the European Commission. The REA is located in Brussels, Belgium, and will become the biggest of the 6 existing EU executive agencies with a planned staff of 558 by 2013. It will control a EUR 6.5 billion budget, which represents around 12% of the budget for the current EU Framework Programme for Research (FP7). Although FP7 runs until 2013, the REA is expected to remain in place until 2017 in order to manage projects funded during FP7.

More info:
http://cordis.europa.eu/search/index.cfm?fuseaction=news.document&N_LANG=EN&N_RCN=30903

Rules for Indirect Costs in FP7 from 2010 Onwards

The EU-Commission has decided to maintain the calculation-rules of indirect costs (flat rate of 60% direct costs) for non-profit public bodies, secondary and higher education establishments, research organizations and small and medium sized enterprises for EU-projects within FP7. After this decision the updated version of Annex II has been published. In Annex II of the model grant agreement (Article II.15.2 c)), footnote 7 was deleted in accordance with the above-mentioned decision.

Modernization of EU Research Funding on the Right Track

The European Commission presented a progress report covering the first two years of FP7, which will last until 2013. The biggest EU R&D funding programme, with a €54bn budget over 7 years, proves to be well suited to answer the EU’s economic and societal needs. Priority areas such as environment, energy or nanotechnologies contribute to a sustainable, low-carbon economy, with industry-led technology platforms helping to define topics which meet industry’s long-term needs. Joint Technology Initiatives embody new public-private ventures on an unprecedented technological and financial scale. The European Research Council supports the best researchers to compete globally and to develop scientific excellence FP7 is a strong asset in the EU’s fight against the current crisis with its budget growing every year by 13% until 2013. The report underlines remaining challenges for the FP7, such as the mobilization of new Member States, the participation of SMEs and administrative simplification.

The 6th Call EraSME for Trans-National Projects

The 6th call for trans-national projects of the ERA-NET EraSME initiative will be open until October 30, 2009 with 14 participating funding programs. The call aims to strengthen the competitive capacity of SMEs by enhancing cooperation proposals in all fields of technology.
Moreover, the section "Project Building" provides tools in order to facilitate the finding for potential cooperation partners for participation in this call.

More info:
http://www.era-sme.net/public/6th-call-for-proposals

IPR Helpdesk Online Courses

IPR Helpdesk, a project financed by the European Union under the CIP Programme, has set up a dedicated section on its portal with free online courses on management of Intellectual Property in EU projects. Each module is patterned in two steps: the lesson itself and the final self-evaluation quiz to test the knowledge of the issues deal with during the lesson.

More info:
http://www.ipr-helpdesk.org/courses.html

Knowledge Management as a Strategic Tool to Foster Innovativeness of SMEs

The Erasmus Research Institute of Management - ERIM published this study on the relationship between knowledge management, in terms of external acquisition and internal sharing, and innovation behaviour. The results indicate that external acquisition practices play a key role in fostering SMEs’ innovativeness while internal sharing practices seem not to have a significant influence.

More info:
http://hdl.handle.net/1765/15913

The Scientists’ ‘Facebook’ – Networking Possibilities

ResearchGATE is a new on-line service, made available free of charge to researchers. A place where they can present themselves and their research work, locate colleagues working in the same field, discuss with their fellows and create new networks and much more…

More info:
http://www.researchgate.net
http://blog.researchgate.net