European Parliament calls for full CORDIS implementation
Emphatic support for the Community Research and Development Information Service (CORDIS) features in a strongly-worded Resolution of the European Parliament of 12 July 1991. As one of several measures put forward in the Resolution, aiming to increase the effectiveness of Community RTD dissemination and exploitation, Parliament calls on the Commission "to bring to full operation the CORDIS database, which should be wide in coverage and easily usable by industrial companies and participants in Community research." For more information on this Resolution, see the item "Parliamentary Resolution on dissemination/exploitation of RTD" (RCN 552). On it's own behalf, CORDIS reports that it is now well-placed to meet the demands of full implementation. From its launch in December 1990, it has attracted considerable attention; by May 1991 there were some 1200 registered users, from all Member States and from several EFTA countries. The initial phase will reach completion over the coming months with the addition of three new online databases: RTD-NEWS, providing up-to-date information on the full range of Community RTD-related activities, including news and information from the programmes themselves; RTD- INFOPOINTS, giving details of organizations in Member States offering assistance in connection with Community RTD activities (for example, to potential participants in Community programmes); and RTD-PARTNERS, aiding identification of suitable partners for projects seeking Community support, and for the exploitation of RTD results. Full implementation will permit the addition of further databases and services, new means of making information available to users (CD-ROM and diskette distribution of CORDIS subsets), introduction of intelligent interfaces for certain user-categories, plus connections to national and international network services.