Balancing European environment projects
Europe has an unbalanced participation in environmental projects of the Seventh Framework Programme (FP7), where the overwhelming majority of participants come from founder members of the EU. Newer states from CEE are underrepresented, with Latvia and Lithuania being represented the least. Addressing the imbalance is the PROCEED project. PROCEED is a consortium of 15 members from 12 countries, and is co-funded with its sister project, ENVIMPACT. PROCEED's 11 objectives broadly cover promoting innovative environmental research in CEE countries and increasing research collaboration opportunities. PROCEED intends to achieve its aims by exploiting the Enterprise Europe Network (EEN). This is an existing network of European technology centres, universities and other research centres, and Chambers of Commerce. PROCEED's use of the EEN would create a communication network for environmental research results. This is expected to redress the deficit of relevant knowledge and experience in CEE countries, and also support research. The project focus is on EU-15 Member States, including Denmark, Greece and Italy. CEE foci included Bulgaria, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania and Slovenia, and three Associated Countries (Croatia, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) and Serbia). PROCEED's work has resulted in improvements in numerous areas. These include uptake of environmental research results in CEE, new technology transfer agreements, and better synergies with existing European environmental networks/projects. An additional improvement includes better communication and understanding of research results on the part of policymakers. Increased participation has been recorded in collaborative projects by agencies in regions of the project's interest. Lastly, the project has resulted in improvements in understanding of intellectual property issues, and improved services to enterprises by EEN members. Joint PROCEED and ENVIMPACT dissemination work includes the development of an online database of best practice results and information. The database offers detailed analyses and recommendations concerning dissemination or research results. PROCEED also developed several key groups on various social networking platforms, and fostered discussion. The project should achieve its intended goal of improving CEE research performance and participation in EU projects.
Keywords
Seventh Framework Programme, Central and Eastern Europe, environmental research, Enterprise Europe Network