New CORDIS service dedicated to candidate countries
CORDIS, the European Commission's Research and Development Information Service, is offering key information, tools and features to help individuals and organizations to participate in and benefit from European research projects and fully integrate the European Research Area (ERA). A new service is providing all this information from a candidate country's perspective. The service supports the participation of candidate countries' organizations in research programmes and encourages their integration in on-going projects. To this end, interested organizations will find all relevant information about the participation rules and open funding opportunities in different programmes as negotiated in specific agreements between the European Union and so-called newly associated States (NAS). A direct link is also provided to the Partners service. A geographical search feature enables users to identify key partners in candidate countries as well as a selection of organizations with prior experience. In addition, the service is offering direct links to local assistance networks as well as catered search screens to review open calls, special news on enlargement and ERA. Part of the Fifth Framework programme (FP5) service, this new development will prove useful for all organizations from candidate countries to identify funding opportunities, highlight their interest as potential partners and find local support and catered news and information. The service also aims to underline the interactivity of CORDIS in support for a better participation of candidate countries to the current debate on the next Framework programme and the proposed ERA.