Commission to invest one billion euro in ICT research
The European Commission is about to launch 276 new research projects in the field of information and communication technologies (ICT). The projects will receive one billion euro in funding between them - the largest amount ever awarded by the EU as the result of a single call for proposals. The projects were selected following the fourth call for proposals under the Information Society Technologies (IST) call of the Sixth Framework Programme (FP6). Over 1,300 proposals were submitted in response to the call, of which 462 met the criteria. In the end, 276 projects were retained. 'Investment in research in information and communication technologies is our best bet contribution to growth and jobs,' said EU Information Society and Media Commissioner Viviane Reding. The Commissioner went on to emphasise the importance of increasing the funding available in the next EU budgetary envelope. 'Europe continues to under-invest considerably in ICT research for lack of sufficient resources both at EU level and at national level,' she said. 'Today, half the ICT research projects proposed for EU funding have had to be turned down, despite meeting all the requisite quality criteria. If Europe wants to be part of the game of global competition for better ICT services, we need to step up our resources considerably.' The financial perspectives proposed by the Commission for the period 2007 to 2013 provide for an 80 per cent increase in annual research expenditure in ICT. Many of the retained projects are aimed at achieving industrial and societal breakthroughs in fields that the Commission considers to be of strategic importance to Europe, and in the fields where Europe has strengths. These areas include micro and nanoelectronics, mobile communications and broadband technology. Some of the areas funded under this call for proposals are fairly new to the EU research portfolio: cognitive systems (which sense and interpret real events and help humans to deal with them); improvements in the security and dependability of information; and new applications for health, transport, content creation and government administration. Some 20 per cent of participants in the new projects are small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs), receiving 162 million euro between them. Research organisations from the new EU Member States will receive 70 million euro. The document giving the Commission the go-ahead to begin negotiations with project consortia was signed in the last week of July, meaning that contracts with project consortia will be signed in the autumn.