Restructured CORDIS National R&D and Innovation Services reflect EU enlargement
On 1 May 2004 the European Union welcomed ten New Member States - Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia, and Slovenia. CORDIS reflects this historic development by bringing together research and innovation information from the 25 Member States of the enlarged EU in a new National R&D and Innovation service homepage. As a contribution towards building a true European Research Area (ERA), the CORDIS National R&D and Innovation Information Service outlines the national policies and frameworks in which research is undertaken throughout the EU and associated countries, as well as the latest news and achievements. Each national service also provides detailed information on the country's participation in projects of the EU's Framework Programmes for research, an invaluable tool in evaluating the impact of EU funding at national level. Although the New Member States have been benefiting from CORDIS services since well before accession, with many researchers and businesses from these countries regular CORDIS users and active participants in European research and development (R&D) activities, the new structure of the service mirrors the new phase of EU enlargement. Each of the 32 individual national services - organised into three sub-sections devoted to the 25 Member States, three Candidate Countries and five Associated Countries - introduces national systems and political priorities, and provides information including: latest news, EU projects involving national coordinators or partners, project results, technological offers, and the next phase of EU R&D.