European ICT News

Tools developed using EU funds to ensure that digitally stored data can be preserved, accessed and understood for the indefinite future are now available in the form of open source software. The EU's CASPAR (Cultural, Artistic and Scientific knowledge for Preservation, Access and Retrieval) research programme involved researchers from the Czech Republic, France, Greece, Israel, Italy and the UK. This work complements initiatives such as Europeana, the European digital library (see MEMO/10/166). The EU has contributed € 8.8 million of the €15 million total cost of the project under the European Commission's research funding programme (Sixth Framework Programme 2001-2006). Until now large volumes of electronic data such as official records, museum archives and scientific results have been unreadable or at risk of loss because newer technologies could not read it or allow current users to understood it. Application of ICT research to benefit Europe's citizens and businesses is a key element of the Digital Agenda for Europe adopted by the Commission in May 2010.

Governments need to go for world-class quality in their education systems to ensure long-term economic growth, according to the latest edition of the OECD’s annual Education at a Glance.

On 7 September 2010, Israel deposited its instrument of accession to the OECD Convention, thereby becoming a member of the Organisation. Israel was invited by OECD countries to open negotiations for membership in May 2007.

The purpose of the conference is to bring together researchers and practitioners interested in the application of information and communication technologies (ICT) to healthcare medicine in general and to the specialized support for those with special needs in particular. Mobility and ubiquity in healthcare systems, standardization of technologies and procedures, certification, privacy are some of the issues that medical informatics professionals and the ICT industry in general need to address in order to further promote ICT in healthcare.

The second of three events marking the OECD Privacy Guidelines, the conference will be hosted by the Israeli Law, Information and Technology Authority in Jerusalem, Israel. The conference will be held back-to-back with the 32nd International Conference of Data Protection and Privacy Commissioners. A preliminary agenda and other materials are now available.

Erasmus University Rotterdam, The Netherlands, 6 September 2010

The economic and social benefits of investing in education are among the issues analysed in the 2010 edition of the OECD’s Education at a Glance, to be published on Tuesday 7 September. Four media presentations of this year’s edition are planned : in London, Paris, Berlin and Brussels.

Consumer prices in the OECD area rose by 1.6% in the year to July 2010, up from 1.5 % in June. This small increase mainly reflected developments in energy and food prices, which increased by 6.2% and 1.1% respectively in the year to July, compared with rises of 4.7% and 0.6% in June.

The purpose of this contract is to study current practices in thematically open bottom-up approaches to funding cross-disciplinary frontier research (such as the Open scheme of the Future and Emerging Technologies challenge within the ICT workprogamme), to provide scenarios for the possible future developments of such schemes, and to formulate recommendations and options to address the opportunities ahead for boosting the exploratory power of bottom-up collaborative frontier research.

Members of eMobility will discuss selected activities of eMobility Working Groups and the Steering Board on the ICT sector and the preparation of FP8 for future collaborative research. The meeting provides a good networking opportunity e.g. for the preparation of new research consortia for upcoming FP7 calls 7 and 8 and the Future Internet PPP.

The Action-Grid project (International Cooperative Action on Grid Computing and Biomedical Informatics between the European Union, Latin America, the Western Balkans and North Africa) was a 24-months support action funded by DG INFSO that ended in May 2010. The main accomplishments of the project include a white paper: "Linking Biomedical Informatics, Grid Computing and Nanomedicine" and a survey on Grid Initiatives in the European Union, Latin America, the Western Balkans and North Africa.

The scope of the meeting is to inform the whole VPH research community of all the strategic activities that are being conducted by various members in relation to the VPH research in the domain of ICT for health, the VPH internationalisation projects, the VPH toolkit, the VPH infrastructures, the ARGOS international observatory, the VPH FET initiative, etc. The VPH Network of Excellence invites all those who are involved with the VPH initiative to an all-hands meeting, where VPH key figures will be invited to update the community on strategic activities, to present detailed information and to discuss openly the general strategic directions that the VPH initiative will take in the next few years. From this public discussion will emerge the 2010 update to the VPH Research Roadmap, that the VPH NoE will compile and publish before the end of the year. Participation is open and free to anyone, but pre-registration is required.

The second VPH Industry Day will be held in Barcelona on 8th and 9th September 2010. The event is organised by the European Network of Excellence for the Virtual Physiological Human (VPH) in collaboration with the Spanish Centre for the Development of Industrial Technology, the University of Sheffield, University of Pompeu Fabra and Instituto Ortopedico Rizzoli. It aims to increase the awareness amongst European Industry of the vision, the concepts, and the concrete technological achievements of VPH-related research. This year the event is organised around three themes: a) Research to Business (R2B): VPH research projects are presented to industry experts both in terms of vision and of exploitable results; b) Business to Business (B2B): Companies present to other companies concepts, products and services that can be used to develop VPH-related products; and c) Regulatory to Business (G2B): Regulators discuss standardisation and regulatory affairs in Europe and the USA relevant for VPH-based technology.

The Healthy Regions project has been running for three years and has had as overall objective to develop a toolbox with methods, tools, guidelines and recommendations that regional and local authorities can use to bring health and health promotion on the political agenda. The Healthy Regions project included a trial period, where the participating regions have tried out the toolbox. During this final conference each of them will show how they used the tools, what they got out of it and how the Healthy Regions project made a difference on a political and / or practical level.

The European Commission's Reflection Group ("Comité des Sages") on digitisation launched today a consultation on how best to foster the online presence of cultural heritage. As Europe's creative and cultural sectors undergo a revolutionary transition, innovative solutions are needed to keep up with technological advances and reap their full benefits. The Commission has asked the Reflection Group to look at how best to speed up the digitisation, online accessibility and preservation of cultural works across Europe. The consultation will run until 30 September 2010.

The purpose of this tender is the purchase of a follow up service to the PSI Platform for the promotion of a dynamic PSI re-use market across the EU. The new project/services will build on the work and content of the current web site. The future contractor will, in addition, monitor the impact on the re-use of PSI of new policies in key areas such as: pricing and charging policies, licensing, complaints and redress procedures, information systems for facilitating access to and re-use of PSI, etc. Tender documentation can be downloaded from the Commission's Public Sector Informtaion web site.