ERGO gives access to more innovative project information ERGO - the "European Research Gateways On-line" pilot project - is expanding. New German and Austrian information services have joined. ERGO now gets project records from over 15 national information providers. The ERGO pilot project was launched in 1998 to respond to the wi... ERGO - the "European Research Gateways On-line" pilot project - is expanding. New German and Austrian information services have joined. ERGO now gets project records from over 15 national information providers. The ERGO pilot project was launched in 1998 to respond to the widespread need for easier access to national research and development information. The service regroups core information in English on research projects throughout Europe. Information is provided free of charge by national research information services. The European Commission coordinates the gathering of information into a central catalogue. Although the pilot project is still at an early stage, it already offers a unique facility to search through national databases from a single entry point. Building a "one-stop shop" for innovative projects: - Hosted by CORDIS, the European Community Research and Development Information Service, ERGO is a helpful tool for the research and business communities to get an overview of research and development projects in Europe. The service aims to avoid duplication of research efforts and to improve take-up of innovative projects and ideas. ERGO gives users the opportunity to access timely and comprehensive information easily, as the information assembled in English was originally published in various languages and hosted in different places. Offering a facility to search top European R&D sources: - ERGO currently gives access to more than 80,000 project records. The information can be browsed via a user-friendly search system, and is made available by national databases in a common format. Retrievals are easy, thanks to useful searchable items, such as project title, keywords, name of the person responsible for the project and address of the parent organisation. ERGO also provides all you need to obtain more details on a particular project by contacting the national host or the project contact person. Each national provider transmits new and updated summary records on a regular basis. Towards a comprehensive and interactive gateway: - ERGO today gives just a foretaste of the comprehensive service planned for the future. The next step will be to give access to some 20 to 30 national information services by the end of 1999. The European Commission aims ultimately to broaden the service to provide information on all European research facilities, expertise and results. Along with a planned multilingual service, ERGO is bound to become a more comprehensive one-stop shop at: URL: http://cordis.europa.eu/ergo Complementary information on research and development programmes and policies can be found on CORDIS at: URL: http://cordis.europa.eu
