Framework Programmes for Research and Technological Development

The Framework Programmes for Research and Technological Development, also called Framework Programmes or abbreviated FP1 through FP8, are funding programmes created by the European Union in order to support and encourage research in the European Research Area (ERA). The specific objectives and actions vary between funding periods.

Background

Conducting European research policies and implementing European research programmes is an obligation under the Amsterdam Treaty, which includes a chapter on research and technological development. Since even entire Member States find it increasingly difficult to play a leading role in many important areas of scientific and technological advance, international cooperation is needed.

It was estimated in 2006 that the contribution of €7 billion/year might generate a GDP increase of €200 billion/year in the 2030s. Proponents gave the intangible incentive to face the intrinsic complexity of international collaborations. Diversity introduces additional costs, but it facilitates addressing competitors in an even more diverse world. Changes triggered by research policy directly affect people and enterprises, which experience broader horizons and experience the advantages of international collaboration. This complements the institutional activities of the EU, building a community united in diversity capable of facing the challenges of a globalized world.

To advise the European Commission on the overall strategy to be followed in carrying out the Information and Communication Technology thematic priority, the Information Society Technologies Advisory Group (ISTAG) was set up. It reflects and advises on the definition and implementation of a coherent policy for research in and on ICT in Europe.

Instruments

Framework Programme projects are generally funded through instruments, the most important of which are listed below.

Integrating Project (IP)

Medium- to large-sized collaborative research projects funded in FP6 and FP7. They are composed of a minimum of 3 partners coming from 3 different countries from Associated states but can join several tens of partners. The typical duration of such projects is 3 to 5 years but there is not a defined upper limit. The budget granted by the Commission can reach several tens of million euros, paid as a fraction of the actual costs spent by the participants.

IPs specifically aim at fostering European competitiveness in basic research and applied science with a focus on "addressing major needs in society" defined by the Priority Themes of the Framework Programme. Like STRePs (see below), IPs ask for a strong participation of small or medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to ascertain the translation of research results into commercially viable products or services.

Network of Excellence (NoE)

Medium-sized research projects co-funded by the European Commission in FP6 and FP7. These projects are "designed to strengthen scientific and technological excellence on a particular research topic through the durable integration of the research capacities of the participants."

NoE projects require the minimum participation of three different EU member nations, however, projects are usually expected to involve at least six countries. Projects are provided grants for a maximum of seven years. The budget granted by the Commission is €1-6million per year depending upon the number of researchers involved.

An NoE project should not strictly be considered as a research project, since its aim is not to conduct research, but rather to contribute to the clarification of the concepts in the covered field.^{[citation needed]}

Specific Targeted Research Projects (STReP)

Medium-sized research projects funded by the European Commission in the FP6 and FP7 funding programs. STReP projects are composed by a minimum of 3 partners coming from 3 different countries from Associated states. The typical duration of such projects is 2 to 3 years. In FP6, they generally involved between 6 and 15 partners. The budget granted by the Commission is in average around €2 million.

The programmes

The framework programmes up until Framework Programme 6 covered five-year periods, but from Framework Programme 7 on, programmes will run for seven years. The Framework Programmes, and their budgets in billions of euros, have been and will be:

Framework Programme	period	budget in billions
First	1984–1988	€3.75
Second	1987–1991	€5.396
Third	1990–1994	€6.6
Fourth	1994–1998	€13.215
Fifth	1998–2002	€14.96
Sixth	2002–2006	€17.883
Seventh	2007–2013	€50.521 over 7 years + €2.7 for Euratom over 5 years
Eighth, called Horizon 2020	2014–2020	€80 (estimated)

Framework Programme 5

FF POIROT

The Financial Fraud Prevention-Oriented Information Resources using Ontology Technology (FF POIROT) project was an EU fifth framework funded, Information Society Technologies (IST) project (IST- 2001-38248) developed in response to the hundreds of millions of Euros lost every year in the EU due to financial fraud engendered by global digital markets.

Framework Programme 6

The Sixth Framework Programme took place from 3 June 2002 until 2006.

BEinGRID

The largest project was BEinGRID (Business Experiments in Grid), started in June 2006 and concluded in 2009.

AssessGrid

The Advanced risk assessment and management for trustable grids project (AssessGrid) project started in April 2006 and ended in March 2009.

Access-eGov

The eGovernment-oriented Access-eGov project (Access to e-Government Services Employing Semantic Technologies) started in January 2006 and concluded in 2009.

Akogrimo

The Access to KnOwledge through the GRId in a MObile World project (Akogrimo) project started in July 2004 and ended in October 2007.

ARGUGRID

The Argumentation as a foundation for the semantic grid (ARGUGRID) project started in 2006 and ended 31 May 2009.

ASG

The Adaptive Services Grid project did research on service-oriented architecture, completed on 28 February 2007.

DAIDALOS

The Designing Advanced network Interfaces for the Delivery and Administration of Location independent, Optimised personal Services (DAIDALOS) project on mobile phone systems started in November 2003 with a second phase from 2006 to 2008.

KnowARC

The Grid-enabled Know-how Sharing Technology Based on ARC Services and Open Standards project developed a Grid software solution based on the original architecture of the Advanced Resource Connector (ARC) and open community standards. As a result, ARC became one of the solutions used in the European Grid Infrastructure.

PLANETS Project

The Preservation and Long-term Access through Networked Services project addressed core digital preservation challenges. The primary goal for Planets was to build practical services and tools to help ensure long-term access to digital cultural and scientific assets. The outputs of the project are now sustained by the follow-on organisation, the Open Planets Foundation.

SALERO

The Semantic AudiovisuaL Entertainment Reusable Objects (SALERO) project started in January 2006 and ended 31 December 2009.

SUPER

The Semantics Utilised for Process management within and between EnteRprises (SUPER) project started in April 2006 and ended 31 March 2009.

UbiSec&Sens

The Ubiquitous Security and Sensing in the European Homeland project studying wireless sensor networks started in January 2006 and ended in December 2008.

Update

Understanding and Providing a Developmental Approach to Technology Education (Update), studied science and technology teaching from 2007 to 2009.

Framework Programme 7

The funding of the Seventh Framework Programme started in 2007.

AnastomoSEAL

The AnastomoSEAL project is designed to produce a next-generation sealant patch for use in colorectal surgical operations in order to reduce the chance of anastomotic leakage. The AnastomoSEAL project began in 2012 and will run for three years.

AQUALITY

'Online industrial water quality analysis system for rapid and accurate detection of pathogens' (AQUALITY project) proposes to develop an online water monitoring device for microbiological contamination analysis, allowing industries and environmental protection agencies to replace the routine activities of sampling and laboratory testing of pathogens. The new system will be able to real-time monitor the quality of industrial process water and effluents basing on an opto-ultrasonic device and on a lipid-based diagnostic kit. The novelty of the approach is the use of engineered liposomes for detecting bacteria in water: the liposomes will in fact be loaded with a chromophore and will be engineered to specifically react with one target bacteria; this is the simple operating system of the AQUALITY system, which is completed by an ultrasonic unit to concentrate bacteria and an optical unit for detecting the sample colour change following to the interaction between liposomes and bacteria. Learn more about the project at:www.aquality-project.eu.

ARROWS

'Advanced interfaced micro-systems Research for analysis of Real-wOrld clinical, food, environmental and Waste Samples' The goal of ARROWS is to develop a microengineered platform for the analysis of ‘real-world’ samples from the food, drink and healthcare industries. The principle deliverable will be a chip-scale capillary electrophoresis/liquid chromatography mass spectrometer (CE/LC-MS) that matches the performance of today’s mainframe systems. Find out more at www.arrows-online.eu

BATS

The research project BATS(Broadband Access via integrated Terrestrial & Satellite systems), aims to bridge the potentially widening Broadband divide between urban and rural areas in order to meet the objectives set forth in the EC Digital Agenda: universal availability of Broadband speeds of at least 30 Mbit/s throughout Europe, with 50% having speeds above 100 Mbit/s by 2020. Given that even accelerated deployment of current terrestrial Broadband technology will not be able to satisfy this requirement in the most difficult-to-serve locations, this will be accomplished by BATS via an integrated approach that combines the flexibility, large coverage and high capacity of future multi-spotbeam high throughput satellites, the low latency of fixed DSL lines, and the pervasiveness of mobile/wireless access.

BIG

Big Data is an emerging field where innovative technology offers alternatives to resolve the inherent problems that appear when working with huge amounts of data, providing new ways to reuse and extract value from information. The Big Data Public Private Forum (BIG) is working towards the definition and implementation of a clear strategy that tackles the necessary efforts in terms of research and innovation, while also it provides a major boost for technology adoption and supporting actions for the successful implementation of the Big Data economy. The project started in September 2012 and runs through October 2014.

COMET

The 30 month COMET project aims to overcome the challenges facing European manufacturing industries by developing innovative machining systems that are flexible, reliable and predictable with an average of 30% cost efficiency savings in comparison to machine tools. From a conceptual point of view, industrial robot technology could provide an excellent base for machining being both flexible and cost efficient. However, industrial robots lack absolute positioning accuracy, are unable to reject disturbances in terms of process forces and lack reliable programming and simulation tools to ensure right first time machining, once production commences. These three critical limitations currently prevent the use of robots in typical machining applications.

Objectives:

• Pioneer a new generation of adaptive production systems using industrial robots
• Demonstrate the new technologies in industrial environments in these four sectors:

automotive

aerospace and aeronautics

moulds and die

high precision components

• Disseminate project results and develop training programs

CoMiFin

The project CoMiFin, running from September 2008 for 30 months, supplied "Communication middleware for monitoring financial CI".

ComVantage

The EU research project ComVantage envisions a mobile product-centric collaboration space for dynamic and flexible information exchange between multiple companies including the end-customer based on Web 2.0 technologies. ComVantage addresses major challenges comprising the architecture of Future Internet Networked Enterprise Systems facilitating secure multi-domain information access for the Web of Linked Data, coupling of legacy information systems, and provisioning of intuitive and easy to use mobile applications to meet the requirements of the production manufacturing scenarios. The collaboration space shall be an extension to existing business and engineering software enabling to share selected business data and machine data of interorganisational relevance to increase efficiency and flexibility of production processes throughout a dynamic network of manufacturers. The main objectives of ComVantage are the following:

• Secure Collaboration via a Dynamic and De-centralised Access to Information
• Easy to Handle and Trustful Collaboration Apps for Mobile Interaction
• Collaboration Apps with Verified Added-Value

CONCERTO

The CONCERTO Initiative is an initiative which aims to demonstrate that the optimisation of the building sector of whole communities is more efficient and cheaper than optimisation of each building individually.

CORETO

The wind turbine industry is the fastest growing market area for the use of composite materials. Current state-of-the-art turbines are increasing in size, providing multi-megawatt power output. To generate such power turbine rotor blade diameters exceeding 100m along with nacelle heights of 120m are becoming standard. As turbines grow and their deployment becomes more widespread and remote, it is becoming increasingly important that systems are put in place to monitor their condition in real time. Such monitoring offers significant cost of ownership savings through condition based maintenance, reduced downtime and a reduced likelihood of catastrophic failure. Even though important efforts have taken place lately towards condition based maintenance, existing solutions require (in most cases) the disassembly of the turbine blades and shipping to specialized composite repair facilities, which results in increased time and money requirements. Should appropriate tooling be available to enable in-situ repair of turbine blades, it is estimated that large-scale reductions could be achieved (both in terms of time and money).

EAST-NMR

Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy is a key technology for research in the modern Life Sciences, with an increasing impact on human health. This technology is unique in new areas of molecular systems biology providing detailed insight into protein-protein and protein-ligand interactions.

Europe has traditionally enjoyed a leadership role in NMR, but to maintain this position in the face of increasing international competition, scientific and technological capabilities throughout the EU must be fully exploited.

The EAST-NMR project responds to exactly this challenge. The project which is funded under the 7th Framework Programme for Research and Technological Development (FP7) connects 21 partners and is coordinated by the Johan Wolfgang Goethe University in Frankfurt. It provides access for scientist all over the world to NMR facilities stationed in Eastern Europe. It therefor relies on experiences made during another EU project (EU-NMR). Furthermore scientists from Eastern Europe are trained and educated with regard to the potential and us of NMR technology. As well the project aims to make further progress in the sample preparation technologies of difficult to tackle membrane proteins through joint research initiatives Learn more about the project under www.east-nmr.eu

EDENext

EDENext, Biology and control of vector-borne infections in Europe, is a research project dedicated to investigating the biological, ecological and epidemiological components of vector-borne diseases – particularly their introduction, emergence and spread – and the creation of new tools to control them. It was officially launched in March 2011 and brings together 46 partners from 22 countries.

EJOLT

EJOLT or Environmental Justice Organizations, Liabilit and Trade runs from March 2011 – 2015. The project supports the work of Environmental Justice Organizations, uniting scientists, activist organizations, think-tanks, policy-makers from the fields of environmental law, environmental health, political ecology, ecological economics, to talk about issues related to Ecological Distribution. Central concepts are Ecological Debts (or Environmental Liabilities) and Ecologically Unequal Exchange. 23 civil society organizations and universities from 20 countries in Europe, Africa, Latin-America and Asia work together on advancing the cause of environmental justice. EJOLT is building up case studies, linking organisations worldwide and making an interactive global map of environmental justice.

EMOTE

EMOTE [4] is a collaborative project that aims to develop artificial embodied tutors with perceptive and empathic capabilities to engage with learners in a shared space. The acronym stands for EMbOdied-perceptive Tutors for Empathy-based learning. Project goals are:

• to research the role of pedagogical and empathic interventions in the process of engaging the learner;
• to explore how the exchange of socio-emotional cues with an embodied tutor can create a sense of connection and act as a facilitator of the learning experience.

This will be done across different embodiments (both virtual and robotic), allowing for the effect that such embodiment will have on engagement and empathy to be explored. Further, the project will support the migration of the artificial tutors across different embodiments, to support students’ learning in both formal and informal settings. EMOTE project will also develop a showcase to ground the research in a concrete classroom scenario.

EPI-WATER

EPI-WATER Project (Evaluating Economic Policy Instruments for Sustainable Water Management in Europe, 2011–2013) aims to assess the effectiveness and the efficiency of Economic Policy Instruments in achieving water policy goals, and to identify the preconditions under which they complement or perform better than alternative (e.g. regulatory or voluntary) policy instruments. It bring together 11 partners from 9 countries.

EPIWORK

EPIWORK Project (Monitoring and Forecasting of Epidemics on a European Scale, 2009–2013) aims to develop a framework for epidemic monitoring and forecasting to be used by epidemiologists and public health scientists.

EPOS

EPOS Project (European Plate Observing System, 2010–2013) aims at creating a single sustainable, permanent and distributed infrastructure, integrating land-based geophysical monitoring networks, local observatories and experimental laboratories in Europe.

EPOS will give open access to geophysical and geological data and modelling tools, enabling a step change in multidisciplinary scientific research into different fields, including seismic and volcanic hazards, environmental changes as well as energy and long-term sustainability.

Long-term sustainability of plate observations, combining a wide variety of solid Earth data and modelling tools are prerequisites to innovative research for a better understanding of the physical processes controlling earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and other catastrophic events (landslides, tsunamis) together with those controlling Earth surface dynamics (crustal response to deformation and to global change).

EPOS will enable the scientific community to study the same phenomena from a multidisciplinary point of view, at different temporal and spatial scales, from laboratory to field and plate tectonic scale experiments. EPOS intends to create the prerequisites for Europe to maintain a leading role in solid Earth science research.

FCHR

The FCHR project ('Fluid foods pasteurizer and homogenizer based on Centrifugal Hydrocavitation Reactor') proposes the implementation of an integrated pasteurizer and homogenizer for fluid foods based on an alternative approach induced only by mechanical means: controlled hydrodynamic cavitation, which consists in the generation of huge amounts of energy in the form of shock waves, due to the turbulence produced in a fluid by pressure fluctuations. As a mechanical treatment, the innovative process we want to introduce with the FCHR will bring the following advantages to the dairy and the Food & Drink EU companies:

1. High scalability, with potential for use of parallel reactors
2. Energy saving: an energy saving of about 20% with respect to the actual expenditure for a milk processor has been estimated
3. Digestibility and quality of food: the process will grant higher digestibility. In fact, lower temperatures may be needed to achieve the same pasteurization effect, this reducing the degradation of nutrients and preserving the flavour of the food
4. Energy Efficiency: high thermal efficiency of heating

Learn more about the project at: www.fchrtechnology.com

FoFdation

The FoFdation project is initiated within the ‘Factories of the Future’, a €1.2 billion program in which the European Commission and industry are collaborating in research to support the development and innovation of new enabling technologies for the EU manufacturing sector.

Today’s major challenges for manufacturing companies are clear:

• Managing global cooperation with multiple supply chain partners
• Achieving continuous and high quality operations under productivity pressures and environmental constraints
• Tracking and managing information in order to meet new requirements (traceability, security and sustainability)

There is also a need for a universal manufacturing information system based on a data exchange standard that can share data seamlessly in a common format. Whilst doing all of the above, factories must continue to meet the highest standards of lean, agile, flexible and sustainable production. These are the issues that the FoFdation project is keen to address.

GREENLION

The GREENLION project will address the issues of ecological compatibility currently plaguing the battery industry. It will do so through the industrial development of ecodesigned processes at the electrode, cell and battery module level.

GRiP

GRiP (Global Research in Paediatrics) is a Network of Excellence (NoE) which aims to develop an internationally recognised training programme in Paediatric Clinical Pharmacology and to improve the knowledge on and safe use of medicines in children. GRiP brings together researchers from several institutions in Europe, North America and Japan.

iCardea

The iCardea Project (An intelligent Platform for Personalized Remote Monitoring of the Cardiac Patients with Electronic Implant Devices, 2010–2013) develops an intelligent platform to automate and personalise the follow-up of the cardiac patients with implantable devices.

IDIRA

IDIRA (2011–2015) develops a system of technologies and guidelines for optimal resource planning and operations across national and organisational borders in case of disasters.

IDPbyNMR

IDPbyNMR is an infrastructure project aiming to improve research capabilities within the region. Is supporting several research groups through Europe in order to bring light in a hot-spot field in lifesciences. Recent evidence shows that a large number of proteins gain functional advantages by remaining natively unstructured, either completely or partially, thus challenging well-established concepts in structural biology. In this frame NMR plays a strategic role to characterise at atomic resolution the highly dynamical properties of such intrinsically unstructured proteins, and follow their (possible) reorganisation by interacting with partners in environments as complex as whole cells.

IKS

IKS (Interactive Knowledge Stack, 2009–2012) develops an open source stack for knowledge management, broadens the reach of semantic CMS technology and serves as a collaboration and software development hub for the semantic CMS community.

IMAGINE

IMAGINE is funded under the "Virtual Factories and Enterprises" theme of the 7th Framework Programme. IMAGINE attempts to develop a new comprehensive methodology and platform for effective end-to-end management of dynamic manufacturing networks in a "plug and produce" approach, and aims at creating a new production model, based on community, collaboration, self-organisation, and openness rather than on hierarchy and centralised control. Dynamic Manufacturing Networks are Collaborative networks of manufacturing companies, which are build up spontaneously, or have a flexible structure (in terms of changing members and roles), in order to meet the changing production requirements and business opportunities.

INFLATER

The INFLATER project aims to create a novel strategy to help EU member states implement flood management, given that floods continue to threaten the personal and economic lives of European businesses and citizens. The research has received funding from the European Community's Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013).

iProd

iProd (Integrated management of product heterogeneous data) is a Framework Programme 7 project with the general aim to improve the efficiency and quality of the Product Development Process of innovative products by developing a flexible and service oriented software framework that, reasoning and operating on a well-structured knowledge, will be the backbone of the computer systems associated with current and new product development processes. iProd addresses PDP in a general way for manufacturing companies, but wants to prove the approach and methodologies in three well defined application areas, i.e., the aerospace, the automotive and the home appliances industries. These three areas generate the largest impact in European economy and are here addressed as the main targets for the iProd application.

Keeping Emulation Environments Portable (KEEP)

The project was developed by Andreas Lange (Director of the Computer Game Museum in Berlin), first launched in September 2008 and is led by Elisabeth Freyre of the French National Library.

KULTURisk

KULTURisk project aims at developing a culture of risk prevention by evaluating the benefits of different risk prevention initiatives. This evaluation will be carried out by developing a novel methodology and referring to different types of water-related catastrophes, such as river inundations, urban flash floods, storm surges, rainfall-triggered debris flows and landslides. In order to demonstrate the advantages of prevention options, an original methodology will be developed, applied and validated using specific European case studies. The benefits of state-of-the-art prevention measures, such as early warning systems, non-structural options (e.g. mapping and planning), risk transfer strategies (e.g. insurance policy), and structural initiatives, will be demonstrated.

LIMITS

LIMITS Project (Low climate IMpact scenarios and the Implications of required Tight emission control Strategies, 2011–2014) aims to provide an assessment of the emissions reductions strategies at the level of the world and the major global economies, and to assess their implementation in terms of: Defining the feasibility of low carbon scenarios and the associated emission reduction pathways according to different assumptions about technology availability, policy regimes, implementation obstacles, and level of commitment at the regional level; Assessing the investment requirements to implement these transformation pathways and the financing mechanisms such that these resources can be best raised and allocated. Evaluating the national and international policies which are needed to ensure that the transition to a low carbon energy infrastructure is attained efficiently, given specific obstacles in the respective economies; quantifying the changes in the energy infrastructure and land use which major economies would need to implement to attain stringent climate policies, and assessing the feasibility and risks of such changes; evaluating the linkages of climate policies with other pressing social and environmental issues such as energy security, air pollution and economic development

LOD2

LOD2 is a large-scale integrating project co-funded by the European Commission within the FP7 Information and Communication Technologies Work Programme (Grant Agreement No. 257943). Commencing in September 2010, this 4-year project comprises leading Linked Open Data technology researchers, companies, and service providers (15 partners) from across 11 European countries (and one associated partner from Korea) and is coordinated by the AKSW research group at the University of Leipzig. The outputs of this project will range from sci-tech to socio-economic areas by providing new technologies and an underlying scientific basis for these and by applying these new technologies to a number of Semantic Web areas experiencing commercial (enterprise search, media and publishing), scientific (extraction, interlinking, ontology classification and fusion methods), and sociological (community knowledge, integration in social networks, eGovernment) success at present.

ManuVAR

ManuVAR (Manual Work Support throughout System Lifecycle by Exploiting Virtual and Augmented Reality) is an integrating project, which aims at improving high knowledge high value manual work (i.e. the type of work that cannot be offshored or automated because it constitutes the core of the business operation that has to be made locally and manually with highly experienced and knowledgeable personnel) by combining product lifecycle management (PLM), virtual and augmented reality technology, and ergonomics methods. It covers five industrial domains: terrestrial satellite assembly, design of assembly lines in small and medium enterprises, maintenance in the railway sector, training on non-destructive techniques in power plant maintenance, and heavy machinery productization and maintenance.

MossClone

Mossclone is the brief name for the research consortium working in the project entitled "Creating and testing a method for controlling the air quality based on a new biotechnological tool. Use of a devitalized moss clone as passive contaminant sensor". The researchers involved are trying to develop a new biotechnological and standardized tool to monitor air quality a fully characterized moss clone together with optimal exposure conditions. This shall improve the constant control of air pollution since existing technologies are either expensive or not precise enough. This European project belongs to the 7th Framework Programme (FP7), specifically within the FP7 Cooperation programme. The research consortium consists of five academic partners and five small and medium enterprises (SMEs) who are located in Spain, Germany, France, Italy and Ireland. The project started in April 2012 and funding will finish in March 2015.

MultiHy

MultiHy is a project funded by the EU’s 7th Framework Program under the theme “Nanosciences, Nanotechnologies, Materials and new Production Technologies”. The project has a combined budget of 5.3 mil € (including EU and partner contributions) and will run from the 1st of May 2011 until the 30th of April 2015. The aim of MultiHy is to develop industrially-relevant computational models to assist in the evaluation of the susceptibility of complex materials to hydrogen embrittlement under realistic service conditions. Hydrogen embrittlement is a serious and costly industrial problem that affects a diverse range of engineering materials in common environments. There is an urgent need to develop a better understanding of hydrogen embrittlement and to develop tools to evaluate the impact of hydrogen on the structural integrity of materials and components. MultiHy aims to achieve this by developing an advanced multiscale framework and applying it to real industrial problems involving hydrogen embrittlement.

MultiPARTES

Multi-cores Partitioning for Trusted Embedded Systems (MultiPARTES) is a collaborative research STREP project supported by the European Union under the 7th Framework Programme in the area of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT). MultiPARTES started on 1 September 2011, and will last for 3 years. The project aims at developing tools and solutions for building trusted embedded systems with mixed criticality components on multicore platforms. It is based on developing an innovative open-source multicore-platform virtualization layer based on the XtratuM hypervisor. A software development methodology and its associated tools will be developed in order to enable trusted real-time embedded systems to be developed as partioned applications in a timely and cost-effective way.

MyOcean

MyOcean is an operational oceanographic project which aims to monitor all sort of parameters in global oceans and forecast the state of the ocean thanks to ocean numeric models.

NannoS3

NanoS3 project is an Initial Training Network formed by 8 Academia and 2 full industrial Partners. Objectives: • 1: Organizing Soft Nanoparticles • 2: Dynamics of Soft Nanoparticles • 3: Soft Nanoparticles at Interfaces These S&T objectives are combined with the ambitious objectives to train and promote qualified research project managers in the field of soft matter nanoscience, capable to work in research or industry together with experts in different disciplines and in different countries. We will accomplish our goal by training early stage researchers in a wide variety of modern bulk and surface techniques, as well as in modelling and synthetic methods. We will organize a series of tutorial courses on specialized topics, organize network workshops, and implement secondments and visits. To develop the complementary skills needed to start a successful career either in academia or in R&D we will organize trainings in e.g. project management, proposal writing, presentation skills, IP and patent rights and Innovation. www.naons3.eu

NovelTree

NovelTree is a tree breeding initiative to investigate the potential of using the most up-to-date high-tech genetic screening techniques to improve genetic gains of economic traits and operational efficiencies. It is coordinated by the Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique (France) with partial funding coming from the respective consortium partners which consist of 15 public and private European organisations.

ONTORULE

ONTORULE project (ONTOlogies meet business RULEs) is a large-scale integrating project partially funded by the European Union's 7th Framework Programme under the Information and communication technologies Call 3 (ICT-231875). Project ran from January 2009 to December 2011. The project aimed to integrate some pieces of knowledge and technology, such as the acquisition of ontologies and rules from appropriate sources, including natural language documents; their separate management and maintenance; and their transparent operationalization in IT applications.

Parsifal

The Project Parsifal (Protection and Trust in Financial Infrastructures) began in September 2008 for 18 months. It supported the European Programme for Critical Infrastructure Protection (EPCIP) in the research area financial Infrastructure security. Two workshops took place in Frankfurt in 2009. The project yielded eight recommendations for further research, published by Springer in 2011 in the book "ISSE 2010 Securing Electronic Business Processes". The project also contributed to the "Trust-terms ontology for defining security requirements and metrics". The German DIN Deutsches Institut für Normung based its "Consultation on an Industrial Policy for the Security Industry" on results of Parsifal, among others, for the topic "5.1.c) Introducing the ethical/societal dimension in security technologies".

ROLE

The ROLE Project provides a psycho-pedagogically and technologically sound framework for supporting a self-regulated learner, as well as learning tools and resources allowing user to construct her Personal Learning Environment according to her individual learning aims and preferences. The ROLE solution includes learning environments, such as ROLE Sandbox [5], Graasp [6], and ROLE SDK Reference Implementation [7], widgets and widget bundles to populate these environments (available in a ROLE Widget Store [8])and ROLE SDK including software library, test environment, and comprehensive documentation to support further development of the ROLE technology by external developers [9].

SAFEPROTEX

The concept of the SAFEPROTEX project lies in the development of advanced protective clothing for teams involved in search and rescue operations. SAFEPROTEX incorporates multiple protective technologies in order to enhance protection for rescue teams.

SANDRA

SANDRA, where the acronym stands for Seamless Aeronautical Networking through integration of Data links, Radios and Antennas, is a research project that started on 1 October 2009 and will end on 30 September 2013.

This project aims at the definition, the integration, and the validation of a reference communication architecture, SANDRA Airborne Communication Architecture, directly related to the Service Oriented Avionics Architecture envisaged in the Future Communications Study (FAA/EUROCONTROL, 2007).

SANDRA approach consists in pursuing integration at different levels:

• Service integration. Integration of a full range of applications (ATS, AOC, AAC, APC);
• Network integration. Based on interworking of different radio access technologies through a common IP-based aeronautical network whilst maintaining support for existing network technologies (ACARS, ATN/OSI, ATN/IPS, IPv4, IPv6);
• Radio integration. Integration of radio technologies in an Integrated Modular Radio platform (applying IMA concepts to communication avionics);
• Antenna integration. L-band and Ku-band link antennas will be used to enable an asymmetric broadband link;
• WiMAX adaptation for integrated multi-domain airport connectivity.

SANDRA pursues the architectural integration of aeronautical communication systems using industry standards like IP, IEEE 802.16 (WiMAX), DVB-S2, Inmarsat SwiftBroadBand, a set of common interfaces, and standard network protocols having IPv6 as final unification point to enable a cost-efficient global and reliable provision of distributed services across all airspace domains and to all aircraft classes.

Since 2009 SANDRA activities have been coordinated with other R&D programs. For instance EUROCAE WG-82 has been committed to develop the appropriate standards relative to new air-ground data link technologies including data links for airport surface named AeroMACS, which is a WIMAX (IEEE 802.16 - 2009). In that context, the WG 82 Group has been set up collaboration with WIMAX Forum, RTCA, SESAR JU and SANDRA members.

Finally, the overall SANDRA system will be validated in a common laboratory test-bed and in-flight trials using the German Aerospace Center Airbus A-320. Flight Trials are planned on June 2013.

ROV-E

The main objective of the "Lightweight Technologies for Exploration Rovers" project (ROV-E) is the development of the technologies required to obtain "lightweight–fully integrated equipments and subassemblies for exploration rovers based on multifunctional structures".

The aim is to give a step forward in the multifunctional technology, integrating not only structural and thermal functions in the component but also electrical, health monitoring, EMI-EMC shielding, mobility functions for rover driving and steering, power generation and storage.

ROV-E project is funded by the European Union's 7th Framework Programme under FP7 Cooperation Specific Programme and addresses the objectives of activity 9.2 "Strengthening the foundations of Space science and technology", Area 9.2.1."Research to support space science and exploration. SPA.2009.2.1.04 Space transportation for space exploration. Project started in January 2011 and will run for 3 years

SARABAND

The SARABAND project (Smart Antenna & Radio for Access and Backhaul for Advanced Network noDes (SARABAND) aims at taking advantage of the Q-band frequency band (40,5 to 43,5 GHz) in a cost effective way to provide higher performing and integrated network nodes for the wireless backhaul of future mobile radio and last mile access for the digital divide by developing smart antennas and front-end radio modules. The use of millimeter waves, particularly at Q-band where 3GHz bandwidth has been regulated by EU, can bring large capacity with high throughputs, fast deployment, with lightweight and discrete equipment. This project is funded by the European Union's 7th Framework Programme under FP7 Cooperation Specific Programme. Project started in October 2011 and will run for 3 years.

SCAPE Project

The SCAlable Preservation Environments project will enhance the state of the art of digital preservation in three ways: by developing infrastructure and tools for scalable preservation actions; by providing a framework for automated, quality-assured preservation workflows and by integrating these components with a policy-based preservation planning and watch system. These concrete project results will be validated within three large-scale Testbeds from diverse application areas.

SecureChange

SecureChange (Security Engineering for Lifelong Evolvable Systems) is a research project with the objective to develop techniques and tools that ensure "lifelong" compliance to evolving security, privacy and dependability requirements for a long-running evolving software system.

SemanticHealthNet

The SemanticHealthNet (a.k.a. SHN or Semantic Interoperability for Health Network) project will develop a scalable and sustainable pan-European organisational and governance process for the semantic interoperability of clinical and biomedical knowledge, to help ensure that Electronic Health Record systems are optimised for patient care, public health and clinical research across healthcare systems and institutions. Through a clinically driven workplan, exemplified in cardiovascular medicine, SemanticHealthNet will capture the needs for evidence-based, patient-centred integrated care and for public health, encapsulating existing European consensus in the management of chronic heart failure and cardiovascular prevention. Experts in Electronic Health Record architectures, clinical data structures, terminologies and ontology will combine, tailor and pilot their best-of-breed resources in response to the needs articulated by clinicians and public health physicians.

This project is supported by the European Union's 7th Framework Programme and runs for 36 months (Dec 2011 - Nov 2014). The SemanticHealthNet consortium comprises 17 Partners and more than 40 internationally recognised experts, including from USA and Canada, ensuring a global impact.

SESAME

Securing the European Electricity Supply Against Malicious and accidental thrEats (SESAME) aims at providing a contribution to the development of tools and a regulation framework for the security of the European power grid against natural, accidental and malicious threats. During the project (05/2011 - 04/2014), SESAME develops a Decision Support System (DSS) for the protection of the European power system and applies it to two regional electricity grids, Austria and Romania. This DSS enables to:

• identify the vulnerabilities and to detect their origins,
• estimate the damage / impact of real or simulated network failures,
• identify the possible measures for prevention of outages and acceleration of automatic restoration,
• rank these measures according to their effectiveness and their cost-benefit ratios,
• carry out contingency analyses of the transmission / distribution network and generation facilities,
• detect long-term erroneous trends in the security of energy supply and counteract against them by adjusting the market mechanisms.

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SIDER

"Radiation shielding of composite space enclosures" project (SIDER) is funded by the European Union's 7th Framework Programme under Cooperation Specific Programme and addresses the objectives of activity 9.2 "Strengthening the foundations of Space science and technology", SPA.2010.2.3-01 "Security of space assets from space weather events". The project started in December 2010 and will run for 3 years.

Space electronics systems employ enclosures to shield sensitive components from space radiation. The purpose of shielding is to attenuate the energy of charged particles as they pass through the shield material. The standard practice in space hardware is the use of aluminium as both a radiation shield and structural enclosure. The new concepts for lightweight satellite show the possibilities of using advanced designs based on composite housings. Nevertheless, the radiation effect on composites is still scarcely investigated.

The main objective of SIDER is "the development of the technologies and tools required to obtain lightweight, safe, robust and reliable composite structures".

SPIDIMAN

SPIDIMAN will pave the way for a single-port device that integrates improved glucose measurement and more accurate insulin delivery to provide better glycaemic management in patients with insulin-dependent diabetes. The new device is expected to be particularly suitable for patients in childhood and adolescence, who will form a special focus group of the project.

SPREAD

SPREAD Sustainable Lifestyles 2050 - Social Platform identifying Research and Policy needs for Sustainable Lifestyles. What is a sustainable lifestyle? What will a sustainable future mean for the way we live, move, and consume? How do we know if our lifestyles are sustainable or not? How can our aspirations for life and well-being improvements be enabled sustainably (within one planet)? These are some of the underlying questions driving the SPREAD Sustainable Lifestyles 2050 European social platform project.

ThermoMag Project

The ThermoMag project is based on a well known space technology for converting heat directly into electricity by means of thermoelectric generators (TEGs). The core concept of ThermoMag revolves around developing and delivering new energy-harvesting thermoelectric materials and proof-of-concept modules, based on 3D nanostructured bulk Mg2Si (magnesium silicide) solid solutions.

This 6 million euro project is supported by the European Union's 7th Framework Programme and runs for 3.5 years (2011–2014). ThermoMag is coordinated by the European Space Agency and consists of a consortium of 15 public and private European partners.

THROMBUS Project

The problem addressed in THROMBUS project is to propose a multi-scale simulation model in order to predict how cerebral aneurysms may occlude after insertion of a stent. Nowadays, the choice of which stent to deploy in medical practice is left to the physician's expertise and remains intuitive. The project will study through numerical simulations the effect of recent pipeline stents configurations in patient specific geometry trying to understand why some stents produce good thrombus while others don't.

The project is supported by the European Union's 7th Framework Programme and funded for 3 years (2011–2014).

TIMBUS Project

The TIMBUS project addresses the challenge of business process preservation to ensure the long-term continued access to processes and services. TIMBUS builds on feasibility and cost-benefit analysis in order to analyse and recommend which aspects of a business process should be preserved and how to preserve them. It delivers methodologies and tools to capture and formalise business processes on both technical and organisational levels. This includes their underlying software and hardware infrastructures and dependencies on third-party services and information. TIMBUS aligns digital preservation with well-established methods for enterprise risk management (ERM) and business continuity management (BCM).

Trees4Future

Trees4Future (Designing Trees for the Future) is an Integrative European Research Infrastructure project that aims to integrate, develop and improve major forest genetics and forestry research infrastructures. The Trees4Future Transnational Access Programme offers external users free access to state-of-the-art forest research structures and facilities across Europe.

The 9 million euro project is supported by the European Union's 7th Framework Programme and runs for four years (2011–2015). Trees4Future is coordinated by the Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique (France), and consists of a consortium of 28 public and private European partners.

UrbaChina

UrbaChina (2011-2015) is a project funded under the theme ‘Understanding urbanisation trends and processes in contemporary China’. UrbaChina aims at analysing China's urbanisation trends for the next 40 years. This collaborative project is managed by a consortium of 11 Chinese and European research institutions and is led by CNRS (France).

WEBINOS

webinos (Secure Web Operating System Application Delivery Environment) is an EU funded project aiming to develop a secure open source platform for Web applications and services that span a broad range of devices including mobile, tablet, desktop, home media (e.g. television sets) and in-car units. Webinos was launched in September 2010 with over twenty partners spanning academic institutions, industry research firms, software firms, handset manufacturers and automotive manufacturers. The project is scheduled to run for three years as a "Service Platform" project under the EU Framework Programme 7 ICT Programme. webinos extends the web runtime with application programming interfaces that support 1. Discovery of local devices and services independent of the interconnect technology (e.g. WiFi, Bluetooth, USB, Firewire and ZigBee). 2. Discovery of devices and services via social proximity through an extension of social networking concepts. 3. Access to local and remote services in a manner that masks details of interconnect technologies and network address translation. 4. Access to information on the context (user preferences, device status and capabilities, and the environment). Up to now webinos has produced five official reports Use Cases and Scenarios, Requirements & developer experience analysis, User expectations on privacy and security, Industry landscape, governance, licensing and IPR frameworks, The Open Governance Index. In addition, the project has produced research papers and early technical demos. In order to continue work when the EU project funding comes to an end webinos has announced plans to launch a webinos foundation to address this challenge, starting with an affiliate program aimed at attracting further participants to work on the specifications and open source platform.

Fuel Cells and Hydrogen Joint Technology Initiative

The Fuel Cells and Hydrogen Joint Technology Initiative is a public-private venture to "deliver 'fit-for-use' hydrogen energy and fuel cell technologies with a funding of € 470 million for the period 2008 - 2017. The next program will be Horizon 2020, the new framework for Research and Development for the period 2014-2020.

XLike: Cross-Lingual Knowledge Extraction

The goal of the XLike project is to develop technology to monitor and aggregate knowledge that is currently spread across mainstream and social media, and to enable cross-lingual services for publishers, media monitoring and business intelligence. The aim is to combine scientific insights from several scientific areas to contribute in the area of cross-lingual text understanding. By combining modern computational linguistics, machine learning, text mining and semantic technologies we plan to deal with the following two key open research problems: (a) to extract and integrate formal knowledge from multilingual texts with cross-lingual knowledge bases, and (b) to adapt linguistic techniques and crowdsourcing to deal with irregularities in informal language used primarily in social media. The developed technology will be language-agnostic, while within the project we will specifically address English, German, Spanish, Chinese and Hindi as major world languages and Catalan and Slovenian as minority languages.

YEAR2008

Young Research Area of Research supported a competition for European postgraduate and final year undergraduate students working in road transport research. This was organised in conjunction with the 2008 Transport Research Arena

CAAST-Net

Against the background of a global consensus that indigenous capacity in science and technology is an essential pre-requisite to economic competitiveness, sustainable development and poverty reduction, the Network for the Coordination and Advancement of sub-Saharan Africa-EU Science & Technology Cooperation (CAAST-Net) has been developed as a high-level platform, financed by the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme (FP7), to advance international cooperation between Europe and Africa for mutual benefit. CAAST-Net launched in 2008 and ends in December 2012.

See also

• CORDIS
• Directorate-General for Research
• Enterprise Europe Network
• European Institute of Innovation and Technology
• European Research Advisory Board
• European Research Council
• Innovative Medicines Initiative
• Interreg
• LOCOPROL

References

• CAAST-Net

External links

• EU Research & Innovation web site
• European funding news for research
• OSH Research European Agency for Safety and Health at Work
• Research and Development projects co-funded by the EU
• Search Engine of Topics and Projects