Tag Archives: UKRO

Horizon 2020: Presentations Available from Seminar on Food Security and Agriculture Research

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Following a recent UKRO update on food security, agriculture, biotechnology and marine research in Horizon 2020, presentations from a recent Brussels event on this subject have been made available.

The presentations, some of which were delivered by representatives of different European Commission DGs, can be consulted in tandem with the previous UKRO article indicated below. 

They cover topics including:

  • The role of the Joint Research Centre in supporting global food security into the future
  • Horizon 2020 and the Bioeconomy Strategy: policy, initiatives and participants
  • Agricultural research and food security in Horizon 2020
  • The environmental perspective on food security research
  • Plant science contribution to agricultural research and food security
Additional Information

Research beyond borders: Use UKRO to boost your European funding record!

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Today’s post comes from a guest-blogger, Inga Benner of the UK Research Office in Brussels, who has some helpful advice on how to make the most of their services. Thanks Inga!

“The UK Research Office is the European office of the UK Research Councils in Brussels and the team offers a range of useful services to researchers and research administrators in UK universities and other research institutions who subscribe to UKRO. UKRO’s team is based in Brussels and its mission is to promote effective UK engagement in EU research, innovation and higher education activities. Subscribing institution has a dedicated UKRO European Advisor who can be contacted with queries on a wide range of issues including European funding streams, research policy and advice on European project implementation. The office also monitors relevant policy developments on an EU level, including those of interest to the arts and humanities research community.

The UKRO Portal is a useful tool to ensure that you stay up to date with European funding, especially through the UKRO Portal News. Entering the subscriber pages and signing up to the Portal News is free of charge for researchers and administrators in subscribing institutions. Via the Portal News, UKRO disseminates information on calls for proposals and deadlines, background information on the development of new programmes, including the next EU funding programme for research and innovation Horizon 2020, but also on other EU streams such as the Creative Europe programme or Erasmus for All. To give an example of how you could benefit from receiving UKRO News, the team is currently providing regular advice and updates on the upcoming deadlines for the Marie Cure Individual Fellowship calls, the last set of deadlines under the EU’s 7th Framework Programme. UKRO also keeps an eye out for relevant European networking events and informs researchers of opportunities for feeding into programme development, for example through providing input to European Commission consultations.

Even if your institution is not an UKRO subscriber you might still be able to benefit from UKRO, as the office runs the national contact points for the UK for the Marie Curie Actions and the European Research Council. The national contact points offer a general query service on the two funding schemes, a website and runs regular event in advance of major deadlines for calls for proposals. In addition, UKRO publishes European RTD Insight, a publication on developments in EU research and policy funded by the British Council.”

· To find out whether your institution is an UKRO subscriber go to http://www.ukro.ac.uk/aboutukro/Pages/subscribers.aspx

· Signing up to the UKRO Portal is easy and quick, and once an account is created it can be personalised and tailored to your specific areas of interest. To sign up, go to http://www.ukro.ac.uk or follow the guidance provided in this flyer: http://www.ukro.ac.uk/Documents/120828_ukro_portal_brief_guide_subscribers.pdf

Source: Research beyond borders

 

Horizon 2020 full-costing debate heats up

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 Lobby groups have reiterated calls for overhead expenses to be met on a full costs basis under the next EU research programme, ahead of an upcoming meeting of policymakers.

Both business and academia representatives have said that indirect expenses, such as travel and equipment, need to be reimbursed well to encourage researchers to participate in Horizon 2020.

For Horizon 2020, the European Parliament has proposed a funding model under which participants would be allowed to account for the full direct and indirect costs of a project, but only be refunded 70 per cent of this amount to keep costs down.

Business Europe, which represents 41 business federations across 35 countries, says the Parliament’s suggestion would be inadequate, and discourage business participation in the programme. In the letter, dated 5 April, Business Europe says Horizon 2020 participants should be offered two options for funding reimbursement. This should either be 100 per cent for direct research costs and an extra 30 per cent of this amount to cover indirect costs, or participants should be able to claim indirect costs on the basis of the actual amount spent.

In contrast, the European University Association has welcomed the Parliament’s suggestion, because it maintains an option for institutions to use full cost accounting. However, the EUA said the level of reimbursement should be increased from 70 to 75 per cent. The flat rate for institutions unable to account for full costs should also be increased, to 40 per cent, an EUA statement says.

The debate is further complicated by a suggestion, made by the Commission in October 2012, that organisations with high indirect costs could declare some of these expenses as direct costs. The Commission told lobby groups it would prepare guidelines on this, but no details have yet emerged.

“We have asked the Council and Parliament to demand that the Commission produces written guidance, with legal certainty, before taking any final decision on cost reimbursement,” said one Brussels source. “This has not happened yet.”

Representatives from the Council of Ministers, the European Parliament and the European Commission will meet on 16 April for a trilogue discussion on the details of the Horizon 2020 programme, including the funding model to be used for research projects.

In its Horizon 2020 proposal, the European Commission says it intends to use a simplified funding model. This would pay participants 100 per cent of direct research costs, and an additional 20 per cent of this amount for indirect expenses—with no option to reclaim the value actually spent.

The Council of Ministers, which represents member states, supports this simplified approach, but suggests the flat rate for indirect costs be increased to 25 per cent.

Source: Research Professional,  By Laura Greenhalgh

Plug in to a healthier future

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Healthcare of the futureResearch to set up an online system enabling doctors to access patients’ health records from all across the European Union, has been launched.

The European Commission project, MyHealthAvatar, is designed to give people more knowledge and control of their health via their computers and mobile phones.

The programme will keep archives of each user’s electronic health records, as well as store data about daily activities and family history.

These combined factors, which may influence general health, would then be collated to predict and prevent potential
diseases such as various forms of cancer.

It will also build a consistent continent-wide record of individual citizens enabling effective treatment should travellers become unwell anywhere in the EU.

The three year, 2.4 million euro study is dedicated to developing novel approaches to provide a solution that offers access, collection, sharing and intelligent analysis of long-term and consistent personal health status data through an integrated digital representation in silico environment.

This will help to deliver clinical analysis, prediction, prevention and treatment tailored to the individual subject.

The UK’s University of Bedfordshire’s Professor of Visual Computing, Feng Dong, is leading the scheme which is being worked on with a consortium of universities and hospitals around Europe, including the University of Lincoln (UK).
Professor Dong, who will be working with a team from the University’s Centre for Computer Graphics and Visualisation, believes the avatar “could reshape the future of healthcare”.

He said: “Although there have been similar projects to this in the past, we are hoping to learn from previous ideas which didn’t quite work to make MyHealthAvatar successful. I think one of the key issues is to make it people friendly and for it to be easy-to-use. Most of the data for the Avatar will come from the system itself and there is very little for the user to actually insert, or do.

“With today’s technology it is possible to use a person’s information from sites such as Twitter and Facebook to give us more details about a patient. With mobile phone tagging it is also possible for the system to show where the patient has been. So for example if they are regularly in the pub, it could suggest to the user that they are drinking too much.

“Additionally if they go to the doctors and told they have a disease, precise medical information will be sent their way; which a) reduces  the need revisit the doctor, and b) helps them research  online for healthcare information. So we are hoping this will make MyHealthAvatar stand-out. It’s very exciting to be leading the project and a quite a coup for the University too.”

The University of Lincoln’s Dr Xujiong Ye, who will be working with a team from the University’s Laboratory of Vision Engineering (LoVE), will primarily focus on the area of multi-scale medical image analysis.

Dr Ye, a Reader in the School of Computer Science, said: “We will develop novel image analysis algorithms and approaches using advanced computing technology to support accurate examination and reliable detection of a range of cancer diseases through the information available, from imaging data to histology data. It is expected that the availability of such information will help solve many uncertain cases caused by the ambiguity of data that is often seen at a single scale. For example, the analysis of histology images will provide significant measures to reach more trustworthy decisions for the detection of abnormal structures from the images at the organ level

“We aim to build an infrastructure framework to allow us to collect all the health information required so we can create a 4D digital representation of the patient. This project is expected to exert a major influence on the reshaping of future healthcare in the handling of increased life expectancy and the ageing population.”

Story credits:

Marie Daniels - PR OfficerMarie Daniels - PR Officer
E-mail: mdaniels@lincoln.ac.uk
Telephone: 01522 886244

 

 

 

Horizon 2020: Cloud Computing, Software and Services – Draft Orientation Paper Available

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IBM Cloud Computing by Ivan Walsh CC BY-SA 2.0The European Commission has this week released a document outlining initial thoughts on how the ICT Work Programme 2014-15 could address the future research and innovation challenges in Cloud Computing, Software and Services:

Orientation Paper: 2014 Cloud Computing, Software and Services

This paper is an advance opportunity to see the topics which may form part of the first ICT Work Programme in Horizon 2020. However please note that this is a draft and therefore priorities may be subject to change before the final publication of the Work Programme.

The paper presents two objectives with underpinning aims, rationale and outlines possible areas of activity which may form part of the next call. These are:

  1. Advanced Cloud Infrastructure and Services: Federated cloud networking; automated service composition; mobile cloud service development environments
  2. Innovative Tools and Methods for Software Development:  Tools and methods to manage complexity, system simulation, variability, testing and failure management across the software lifecycle; flexible and scalable tools for on-line collaborative software development

by David Young, Northumbria Research Support