ERA-NET recommends better coordination of flood research across Europe
The CRUE ERA-NET has published a raft of recommendations aimed at improving the coordination of flood-related research programmes in Europe. Proposals include the pooling of experts to identify research needs and the creation of a joint research agenda for flood research. ERA-NETs were designed to encourage the coordination of national and regional programmes. The CRUE ERA-NET was established to consolidate existing European flood research programmes, promote best practice and develop future joint activities in flood research. The network has published a good practice guide which provides an overview of the various opportunities for programme development and the organisation of flood related research. It is based on a survey of flood research programmes in 11 European countries. According to the members of the network, the guide should be used as a tool-box for the development and implementation of future funding activities. Sebastian Catovsky, CRUE Co-ordinator, said, 'The new EU Floods Directive and implementation of the EU Adaptation Green Paper will require closer co-operation between Member States on flood-related research. In this context joint funding initiatives, as recommended by this report, will help to avoid redundancies between the research activities in different countries and achieve cross-border solutions to the greatest extent possible. This survey is a valuable contribution towards a common European flood research agenda for the next five to ten years, which CRUE is currently developing.' The guide recommends the use of the recently developed new information resource CRUISE (CRUe Information System Europe), which gives users instant access to the results of flooding related research, both at the research programme level and ultimately the individual project level. CRUISE is intended to benefit policy-makers, practitioners, research funders and the research community, when searching for flood-related information on three different levels across Europe - research programmes, funding bodies and research units. The database currently comprises detailed information on more than 30 research programmes (worth more than €430 million), 60 funding bodies and about 300 organisations involved in flood risk management research. The Network also strongly recommends collaborative projects involving researchers and research institutes from across Europe. The CRUE ERA-Net brings together partners from the European countries most affected by floods, including Austria, England, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Scotland and Spain.