New look for national research activities on CORDIS
Not only does CORDIS, the EU's official information service on research and development, provide information on European-level research activities and programmes, but it also hosts a range of services dedicated to national-level research. The National R&D Information Service, serving as a portal to these various services, has now been revamped to include information in six languages: German, English, Spanish, French, Italian and Polish. The national services provide a window into the research infrastructure, policies and activities of various countries, whether EU Member States or otherwise, many of which contribute to the development of the European Research Area. At the same time, the current EU framework programme, FP7, includes funds designed to coordinate and find synergies among national programmes, such as ERA-Nets, support for COST actions and the establishment of Article 169 initiatives. The revamped homepage of the National R&D Information Service now includes headlines and highlights from countries outside the EU, reflecting their growing importance to European research. Different sections cover the activities of: - the country holding the Presidency of the European Council; - all EU Member States; - EU candidate countries; - those states that are associated to the framework programme; - some of the non-EU countries that have signed science and technology cooperation agreements. Some new features have also been added to ease web browsing, including the absence of 'pop-ups', since all information is now included in the web pages, and an 'in the pipeline' page featuring the countries for whom a national service is in development.