Information Society 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.

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.

Erasmus University Rotterdam, The Netherlands, 6 September 2010

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.

The objective of this study is to look at the effective speed of the retail broadband services by measuring a number of key performance indicators such as http download speed, ping performance, DNS lookup time and packet loss. The study will provide information on the difference between advertised and effective speed and comparison between Member States. The overall objective is to assess the effective quality of the broadband market for end users.

The present tender is calling for: LOT1: "Metrics and Methodologies Related to Anthropogenic Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Energy End-Use for 'Social Systems': Cities and Companies" to serve as a starting point for further research on methodologies, metrics and related data issues on energy end-use and GHG (or Co2equivalent) emissions. Duration: 9 months. The total price quoted cannot exceed 70.000 EUR ; LOT 2: "Metrics and Methodologies for infrastructures: Smart-Grids" to assist with the assessment of the potential contribution of Smart Grids to the decarbonisation of energy supply in Europe. Duration: 9 months. The total price quoted cannot exceed 180.000 EUR.

The objective of the present request to launch a call for tender is to continue to meet the needs for translation arising from the EU consultation mechanism established under Article 7 of the framework Directive 2002/21/EC(as amended by Directive 2009/140/EC. Notifications of draft regulatory measures submitted to the Commission by the European National Regulatory Authorities ("NRAs"), technical annexes to these notifications, responses by NRAs to requests for further information by the Commission, responses by other NRAs to notifications and other documents or messages in this context are required to be translated, within tight and legally binding deadlines, from their respective official community language of the EU into English. These services are associated with the application of the procedure for notifications as laid down in Article 7 of the Framework Directive for electronic communications ("e-communications") networks and services and the Commission Recommendation on notifications, time limits and consultations.

Vice President and EU Commissioner for the European Digital Agenda Neelie Kroes kicked off this two day conference in Brussels. .... She stated that the Internet of Things, the next wave of internet enabled connectivity, is not simply a technical innovation but a broad process in the heart of our society...

At ICT2010, a number of support actions funded by the European Commission under the 7th Framework Programme are joining efforts and organise this networking session to support the integration of Eastern European, Central Asian (EECA) and Western Balkan (WB) countries into the European Research Area. The objectives of this networking event are to promote the R&D developments made by organisations from these countries and to highlight the collaboration opportunities amongst ICT actors from EU, EECA and WB countries.

This event gathers deans, department chairs and senior faculty staff of leading European Computer Science and Informatics faculties, departments, research institutes and laboratories. The Summit provides a forum for anyone interested in issues of research, education and policy in the field of informatics.

The main purpose of the conference is to share positive and negative practical experiences encountered during the Estonian nationwide Electronic Health Record System implementation process. The conference is meant for people involved in e-health implementation through their everyday work either as service provider or at state level. During the second day the participants will be divided into small groups and they will have an opportunity to visit hospitals, IT companies, and other Estonian organisations involved in eGovernment.

This event will address the whole e-Infrastructures programme, from research networking to global virtual research collaboration. The Conference will be held in the framework of the "2010 Euro-Africa Week on ICT Research & e-Infrastructures", a series of events held under the aegis of the European Commission and the African Union Commission (AUC) with the support of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Employment and the Economy of Finland.

This is a side event to the 3rd Africa-EU Summit and will be held in the framework of the “2010 Euro-Africa Week on ICT Research & e-Infrastructures“, a series of events held under the aegis of the European Commission and the African Union Commission (AUC) with the support of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Employment and the Economy of Finland. One of the objectives is to allow European and African stakeholders involved in the development of cooperation on ICT to get together and to exchange views, share information, and identify synergies in order to increase the impact of their activities.