Workshop on Actions for Better Participation of New Member States to FP7-ICT

— filed under: Workshop on Actions for Better Participation of New Member States to FP7-ICT

Several common barriers were identified already during special sessions of ICT 2008 or of the Proposer’s Day from Budapest in January 2009: lower number of researchers in EU12 compared with EU15, aging process in research institutions, brain drain at the level of young researchers, or research politics in EU12. Further systematic and deeper investigations based on concrete data and statistics are needed to offer a complete image of the current situation of research in ICT in EU12. During the meeting national statistics should be made available and discussed by the delegates. In this context the aim of the meeting is to identify the common barriers in the take up of initiatives for FP7-ICT projects and to arrive to an agreement in what concerns the common actions to be undertaken to improve the participation of EU12 at FP7-ICT programme.

What	Workshop on Actions for Better Participation of New Member States to FP7-ICT
When	Mar 18, 2010 08:00 AM to Mar 19, 2010 03:00 PM
Where	West University of Timisoara, Timisoara, Romania
Contact Name	Dana Petcu
Contact Phone	+40-745-405523
Attendees	ICTC members, NCPs and National experts from EU12
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Short overview of the programme

18	March 2010	19	March 2010
09:00-11:00	State-of-the-art	08:00-10:00	National strategies
11:30-13:00	National strengths - I	10:20-12:20	Software services
14:00-15:40	National strengths - II	13:10-14:30	Round table 2 - Action plan
16:00-18:00	Round table 1 - Action plan

Presentation of the workshop on Idealist site.

Workshop flyer is available here: Integration workshop

Posters UVT and IeAT

Programme

17 March

13:00-17:00 – Main flights arrivals at Timisoara (Austrian Airlines, Lufthansa, Tarom, Carpatair, Wizzair)
18:00-20:00 – Town tour

18 March

08:00 – 09:00 Registration and visit of the site

Session 1: State-of-the-art and ongoing actions

The aim of this session is to analyze and discuss the documents prepared by:
-    the ICTC working group for EU12 better integration,
-    the results of consultancy during the special sessions at ICT conference and InfoDays organized by the European Commission,
-    IDEAL-IST results of public consultancy actions,
-    statistics of EU12 participations at FP7-ICT programme

09:00 – 09:10 Viorel Negru (Romania), Welcome. Short info about SPRERS project
09:10 – 09:30 Dana Petcu (Romania), FP7 statistics concerning NMS in FP7-ICT program (SPRERS study)
09:30 – 10:00 Piotr Kepski (Poland), EC and ICTC/WG EU12 proposals for better integration
10:00 – 10:30 Gabriel Neagu (Romania), Ideal-ist - Your Worldwide ICT Support Network
10:30 – 11:00 Paul Drath (UK), How research project coordinators choose partners for ICT proposals
11:00 – 11:20 Coffee Break

Session 2: National strengths – Part I

The aim of this and the next session is to analyze and discuss the strengths identified at national level or as results of technical audits funded by European Commission.

11:20 – 11:45 Aleksandra Ihnatowics (Poland) - Polish Performance in FP7-ICT
11:45 – 12:10 Eric Flask (Malta) - Endeavouring in FP7-ICT: Malta's Experience
12:10 – 12:35 Galia Angelova (Bulgaria) - Bulgaria in FP7-ICT: Results, Strengths, Barriers and Recommendations
12:35 – 13:00 Sandor Bottka (Hungary) - Hungarian experiences in the FP-ICT participation and related activities
13:00 – 14:00 Lunch break

Session 3: National strengths – Part II

14:00 – 14:25 Atis Kapenieks (Latvia) - From ICT Audit to Effective Participation in FP7/8 … do we have the Roadmap?
14:25 – 14:50 Maria Buciova (Slovakia) - Slovakia and its strengths in ICT
14:50 – 15:15 Rimantas Skirmantas (Lithuania) - FP7 ICT programme – opportunities for Lithuania
15:15 – 15:40 Andrei Paraschiv, Vasile Lungu (Romania) - Romania in FP7-ICT
15:40 – 16:00 Coffee Break

Session 4: Round table 1 – Action plan at FP7-ICT level

16:00 – 18:00

Moderator: Piotr Kepski

Topics to discuss: networking, awareness, best practice and competence promotion, staff mobility, proposal evaluation criteria, performance monitoring, proposer support, involvement in and collaboration with on-going projects, expert groups, special Objectives.
The common agreed actions should be related to the identified barriers and should be identified during this brainstorming session of the meeting.

18:30 - 22:00 Social event

19 March

Session 5: Best practices and national strategies for better participation at FP7-ICT

The aim of this section and the next one is to analyze and discuss the national strategies for better integration as well as success stories in collaboration between EU12 and EU15.

08:00 – 08:20 Ginta Stale (Latvia) - Participation in FP5/6/7 – roadmap for organizational development – university case in Latvia
08:20 – 08:40 Dominik Zyskowski (Poland) - Scientific development through ICT-oriented research at DIS (PUE)
08:40 – 09:00 Vlado Stankovski (Slovenia) - Workflows in a Service Oriented World
09:00 – 09:20 Ernest Cachia (Malta) - The Faculty of ICT at the University of Malta
09:20 – 09:40 Ondrej Jakl (Czech Republic) - ICT initiatives for R&D in the Czech Republic
09:40 – 10:00 Kusper Gabor (Hungary) - Some R&D ICT projects in Hungary, experiences, best practices
10:00 – 10:20 Coffee Break

Session 6: Software services and commercial companies in the frame of FP7-ICT

10:20 – 10:40 Daniela Zaharie (Romania) - Case study: participation of EU12 at software services activities (SPRERS study)
10:40 – 11:00 Cezary Mazurek (Poland) - Software services competence in research and development activities at PSNC
11:00 – 11:20 John Abela (Malta) - Research and Development by an ICT SME - A Case Study
11:20 – 11:40 Aivars Berzins (Latvia) - Latvian experience in software services
11:40 – 12:00 Aljosa Jerman Blazic (Slovenia) - EU based research participation - practical overview
12:00 – 12:20 Traian Rebedea (Romania) - Software services in Romania - Academia and industry
12:20 – 13:10 Lunch break

Session 7 Round table 2 – Action plan at national levels

13:10 – 14:30 Topics: proposals for actions at national levels.

A particular attention will be given to the identification of the mechanisms allowing the implementation of the proposed actions in Panel 1. These mechanisms will refer both to the ways to influence the national R&D politics (e.g. the national mechanisms through which research departments from EU12 can align their topics to FP7-ICT programme) and the European R&D politics in ICT (e.g. proposals for the next FP7-ICT work-programme).

14:30 Closing

Outcome

A final document (Action Plan) with the meeting analysis results and recommendations will be made publicly available in June 2010 on SPRERS site. Targeted audience consists in NCPs from EU27, FP7-ICTC Working Group for EU12 integration, managers of research groups from EU27.

The action plan should contain al least the following chapters:
-    Rationale: analysis of statistics about EU12 performance in FP7-ICT, results of technological audits, statistics of scientific involvement of EU12 research activities subscribing the objectives of FP7-ICT
-    Proposals for indirect actions: with the sub-categories networking, awareness, best practice and competence promotion, staff mobility, proposal evaluation criteria, performance monitoring, proposer support
-    Proposals for direct actions: involvement in and collaboration with on-going projects, expert groups, special objectives
-    Proposals for actions at national levels.

More about the context

Several common factors impacting EU12 performance in FP7-ICT were identified during the special session organized at ICT 2008 conference in Lyon: a low number of project coordinators from EU12; still insufficient number of participations from NMS; even excellent EU12 partners are often not admitted to powerful consortia (exclusive-club effect); lack of funds for building up personal networks and preparing proposals in a systematic manner; low EU12 scientists’ salaries/costs in projects; lack of industrial research, inadequate co-operation between industry and academia in EU12; poor visibility and promotion of EU12 excellence (resulting in poor awareness among EU15 and lack of motivation to look for partners from EU12).

In this context it is crucial to identify, acknowledge, make known and use research excellence available in EU12. Skills, expertise and creativity offered by outstanding partners from EU12 can contribute to strengthening Europe’s ICT research excellence.

The acknowledgment of the need to take action by the FP6-IST and FP7-ICT Committees (ICTC) of EU27 representatives has led to several high-impact actions: top-up call for EU10 (open existing projects for NMS partners) in FP6, the inclusion of EU12 representatives in preparation of FP7-ICT work packages, defining several Objectives with pre-allocated budget in order to facilitate the integration of EU12. More recently, the European Commission has ensured the support of EU12 scientists’ participation to the ICT Conference 2008 in Lyon and in Budapest ICT Proposers’ Day from January 2009, has initiated technological audits of the research activities in EU12, supports and ensures the proper information of scientists in national ICT InfoDays about FP7-ICT programme. Furthermore a special Working Group of the ICTC will be created in June 2009 to monitor for one year the EU12 performance of in the frame of FP7-ICT and deal with actions necessary for a better integration of NMS in the frame of the future FP7-ICT workprogrames. Further reserved sessions at ICT events to facilitate networking between EU12 and EU15 are planned. In the frame of IDEAL-IST project several actions are undertaken: 8 training and knowledge sharing workshops for NCPs, as well as a twinning scheme for exchange best practices and a best practice guide.