The European Commission’s Communication “Rethinking Education”

European education and training systems continue to fall short in providing the right skills for employability, and are not working adequately with business or employers to bring the learning experience closer to the reality of the working environment. These skills mismatches are a growing concern for European industry's competitiveness, says the most recent Communication of the European Commission, appealing to EU Member States to set actions. 

The Communication underlines the importance of tapping on the potential of ICT for education and teaching and highlights the need to develop transversal skills (such as problem solving, team work etc. often also referred to as soft skills) and entrepreneurial skills as they not only contribute to new business creation but also to the employability of young people. 

In this respect, the Communication emphasises at several instances the importance of languages. In a world of international exchanges, the ability to speak foreign languages is a factor for competitiveness. Languages are more and more important to increase levels of employability and mobility of young people.

Further education in STEM – science, technology, engineering and mathematics – is needed if Europe wants to compete with countries like Brazil, China and India that spend more on high skilled STEM education than the USA, Japan and UK together. 

More information about the full document.

Top 16 questions and answers about FP7 2013 work programme

How does investment in R&I help tackle the economic and financial crisis? What is being done for the environment? What measures will help small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) innovate? Or what specific initiatives will bring more results to the market? are some of the 16 questions answered by the European Commission about the FP7 2013 Work Programme.

More information about the 16 questions and answers about FP7 2013 work programme

European Call for Smarter cities/communities

A smart city/community combines diverse technologies to increase the efficiency of how a city functions. Cities and industries join forces to develop a joint technology agenda.

The call for proposals will be open to industry-led consortia operating in the three sectors: energy, ICT and transport. The consortia will need to include partners coming from three Member States and/or Associated Countries teaming up with at least two cities. These criteria should ensure that the demonstration projects presented and selected are market-oriented and that they can be replicated in different cities.

One of the greatest challenges facing Europe is how best to design and adapt cities into smart, intelligent, sustainable environments:

• Cities create some 80% of the EU's gross domestic product with their concentration of trade, business and "people expertise". Cities are a driving force in generating Europe's economic growth.
• They will become even more important as the proportion of Europeans living in urban areas grows from just over two-thirds today to a forecast 85% by 2050.
• 68% of the EU population lives in urban areas, which consume 70% of energy. This accounts for 75% of the EU's total greenhouse gas emissions (GHG).
• The information and communications technology (ICT) sector will require more and more electricity by 2020.
• Urban transport is responsible for one-quarter of all the emissions from road transport.
• Congestion costs Europe about 1% of GDP every year – most of if it from urban areas.

More information about this initiative.

ICT is the new weapon against drug-resistant diseases

Every year hundreds of thousands of people die because of infections that have become resistant to treatment. A new data-mining, clinical monitoring and decision-support system, developed by EU-funded researchers, offers a powerful new weapon in the war on resistance to antibiotics.

When bacteria are first exposed to a new antibiotic they are usually quickly killed off. But over time the bacteria will evolve and adapt to resist the treatment, a problem made worse by factors such as the incorrect prescription of antibiotics, their misuse or the failure of a patient to fully complete a course of medication. Continually developing new antibiotics can therefore only go so far toward treating diseases effectively. 

'Clinically, antimicrobial resistance is a huge challenge. Pharmaceutical companies simply can't come up with new antibiotics fast enough to counter the resistance of bacteria to existing antibiotics and medications,' explains Dr Dirk Colaert, Chief Medical Officer at Agfa HealthCare in Belgium.

More information about this war on drug-resistant diseases

Does Ireland have the highest ICT potential in Europe?

According to the industry association ICT Ireland, the ICT sector is a thriving and growing industry; 9 of the top 10 global companies maintains a presence in Ireland. Could this be the country's foundation for economic recovery?

Ireland benefits not only from the presence of the big ICT names such as Microsoft, HP, Google, Facebook and Twitter - attracted by the country's low corporation taxes and an educated workforce with English as a mother tongue - but also from its robust and highly successful home-grown ICT sector.

The European Seal of e-Excellence hopes that a lot of ICT Irish companies will enter the competition in 2013. 

More information about ICT Ireland

More information about The European Seal of e-Excellence

More information about the full article on Ireland

Celtic-Plus Call for Proposals 2012: Focus on a new "Smart Connect World"

Celtic-Plus is an industry-driven European research initiative to define, perform and finance through public and private funding common research projects in the area of telecommunications, new media, future Internet, and applications & services focusing on a new "Smart Connected World" paradigm. It is organizing these 2 following events:

Celtic-Plus Proposers’ Day 2012 on 3 July in Berlin (collocated with FuNeMS) – Registration still open!

The next Celtic Proposers' Day will be held on 3rd July 2012 at Hotel Estrel in Berlin in collocation with the Future Network and Mobile Summit (FuNeMS), which will be from 4 to 6 July at the same location. The Proposers' Day provides an important platform to present and discuss new project ideas targeted for submission to the Celtic autumn call (15 October 2012). For the registration of your project idea to be presented and discussed please use its registration page or check the draft program page.

Celtic-Plus Call for Proposals (Autumn Call) – submission deadline is 15 October 2012

Celtic-Plus’ second call in 2012 will be launched after the Celtic-Plus proposers’ day on 3rd July. The submission deadline will stay open until 15 October 2012. The second call provides a possibility to start labelled projects from early 2013 (depending on the individual approvals of national funding). The 2012 total project budget volume is expected to be around 100 million euro. Further details about possible research items and call details can be found here.

Better use of ICT can help Spain to improve economic growth

Spain can reap more value from ICTs, says OECD. Better use of information communication technologies (ICTs) can help Spain unlock governmental efficiencies and help prepare the country for future economic growth, according to a new study from the OECD. The report "Reaping the Benefits of ICTs in Spain - Strategic Study on Communication Infrastructures and Paperless Administration", examines recent achievements in two key areas – communication infrastructures and e-government - and proposes policies to help Spain better leverage ICT investments.

"The difficult economic challenges faced by Spain require attention from several perspectives", says Mr. Rolf Alter, director for the OECD Public Governance directorate. "A focus on the added value of ICTs – to lever investments in growth as well as to promote higher efficiency and enable expenditure reductions in the public administration -  is an important contribution for Spain's sustainable recovery."

In terms of ICTs in the public administration, Spain has achieved an impressive supply of online public service delivery but needs to implement effective measures to support a greater user uptake in order to benefit from returns on previous investments. Data and evidence should be used to ground business cases with a clear focus on the value of ICTs – both in decision making and project implementation. Additionally, governance measures should be put in place to ensure national-regional alignment of e-government policies and implementation.

The report has been presented to key members of the Spanish government and to the High-Level Committee Group of Experts of the Spanish Digital Agenda.

More information about this study of OECD

E-textile saves life in Norway

Fishing is one of the riskiest jobs : thousands of fishermen around the world lose their lives every year, mostly by falling overboard and drowning. How could be possible to integrate electronics into the protective outfit to make all the emergency tools wearable and impossible to forget ?

At Trondheim’s swimming pool scientists are testing the first prototype of a smart safety vest, developed as part of a European Union research project. It has sealed sensors that trigger a number of life-saving measures in case of an accident. The design took a lot of research. The sensors need to be correctly placed to distinguish a submersion into the sea from an accidental splash of water or rain, and the inflatable “lung” has to keep the head safely above the water even in strong waves. The smart outfit has an automatic radio transmitter that sends a short-range distress signal to the receiver unit onboard. That allows the system to stop the boat, alert the crew and send the coordinates to the rescue services.

Hilde Færevik, Coordinator for the SAFE @ SEA project, demonstrated the vest: “You can see here on my colleague – he has the lung integrated here – it’s expanded, and on the top of the lung you have the “man overboard” alarm. Of course, a main topic of the project has been how you can integrate this electronics into the material.” To ensure better functionality, comfort and safety, the fabric for the next generation of fishermen’s protective clothing needs to be reinvented. Will it be possible to use these technologies for life jackets and avoid tragedies such as the Concordia ?

More information about "E-textiles improving health and safety" on Euronews.

EU: "Job creation must become a real European priority"

While unemployment is hitting records across the 27 EU member states, the European Commission presents a set of measures to boost jobs. It also identifies the green economy, health services and ICT as areas with the biggest job potential in the future. "All together, the green economy, the health and new technology sectors will create more than 20 millions of jobs in the years to come. Member States need to seize these opportunities, mobilize existing resources and stimulate their labour market in close cooperation with the social partners." said Barroso. In pratical terms, members states are encourage hiring by reducing taxes on labour or supporting business start-ups more. "Job creation must become a real European priority" said László Andor, EU Commissioner for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion. The employment package aims to create a genuine EU labour market to restore growth and to face major structural changes and includes proposals such as :

- Create the right conditions for job creation and labour demand such as hiring subsidies that create new jobs, a (budget neutral) tax shift from labour to environmental taxes, or support for self-employment.

- Exploit the big job potential areas for the future such as the green economy where 20 million jobs could be created between now and 2020 and to include green employment into their’ National Job Plans, strengthening green skills intelligence

- Support an increase in highly qualified ICT labour and promote digital skills across the workforce.

- To improve the matching of jobs with job-seekers, the package proposes to transform the EURES job seeker portal into a true European placement and recruitment tool and foresees (as of 2013) innovative online self-service applications to provide users instantly with a clear geographical mapping of European job offers.

More information on europa.eu

Detailed information about the Winners of the European Seal of e-Excellence 2012 is now available on-line

An on-line brochure with detailed information about each of the Winners of the European Seal of e-Excellence 2012 is now available on-line. The PDF document contains information about the winners' company website, country of origin, key activities and a detailed company/product profile.

European Seal of e-Excellence winners brochure 2012

The European Seal of e-Excellence rewards ICT and Digital Media companies with an excellent track record in innovation marketing. Awarded annually since 2003 by EMF and its Partner Organisations, the Seal is widely known for distinguishing companies with innovative products & services and outstanding marketing.

Download the brochure in high quality
More information

EMF attended the e-Skills Week stakeholders opening conference

EMF as e-Skills Week stakeholder attended on 19 March 2012 the  e-Skills Week stakeholders opening conference in Brussels. The Conference bought together all stakeholders – such as high-level public authorities, key industry representatives and research organisations - to discuss the current situation and needs of the e-Skilled workforce.

The event featured a plenary session on e-Skills policy in practice, as well as panel debates on the topic of e-Skills with both young people and ICT professionals.

More events and activities are foreseen for the upcoming weeks, culminating in a dedicated e-Skills Week final conference on 30 March 2012.

e-Jobs Observatory launches Label of Excellence for training organisations and Certification of Internet-related training courses corresponding to market needs

The e-Jobs Observatory, is a central point of reference for all activities related to research, training, qualifications, standards, norms, certificates and employment in the field of e-Jobs in Europe. The Observatory fosters better interaction between key stakeholders to improve the quality of Vocational Education & Training (VET) in the field of e-Jobs, improve the employability of job seekers and reduce the e-skills shortages on the EU labour market.
 

As an important milestone in reaching these goals, the e-Jobs Observatory launches a Label of Excellence and a Seal of Market Compliance and Certificate.

-The e-Jobs Observatory Label of Excellence distinguishes training organisations proposing Internet-related training courses corresponding to market needs. More

-The Seal of Market Compliance and Certificate will be issued to training providers to have their training courses certified in accordance with labour market-oriented job profiles. More

More information
Visit the e-Jobs Observatory platform

The European Seal of e-Excellence 2012 winners awarded on 6 March at the CeBIT

The winners of the European Seal of e-Excellence 2012 were announced on 6 March at CeBIT in Hannover, Germany.  Innovative and market driven companies from 18 countries joined the award ceremony to receive their award from the hands of jury members.

The prize has been awarded annually since 2003 by EMF-The Forum of e-Excellence and its Partners Organisations at the CeBIT, and is widely known for distinguishing companies with innovative products & services and outstanding marketing.

The Seal is getting more and more international with winners from different countries around the word. In 2011, several Latin American companies were awarded for the first time and this year we have winners from new countries such as China and Canada. The Seal of e-Excellence partners and sponsors' network has also grown with new partners from China, Hungary, Bulgaria and Ukraine for this edition of the award.

The event ended with a cocktail sponsored by Seal partner SOFTEX, The association for the Promotion of Brazilian Software Excellence.

List of the Seal Winners
Follow the event in twitter #seal2012

24 hours to announce the winners of the European Seal of e-Excellence 2012!

Tomorrow afternoon, the 42 Winners of the European Seal of e-Excellence 2012 will be publicly announced at the CeBIT in Hannover, Germany.
The winners represent innovative and market driven ICT companies from 18 countries all over the world and they will receive the award supported by the international network of Seal partners and sponsors.

Life information and all the details of the ceremony as well as the full list of winners will be provided tomorrow in www.emfs.eu and www.seal-of-excellence.org.

Life information in Twitter at #Seal2012

The FP7-ICT Call 9 is now open!

The new call for proposal has been published today (18/01/2012) with a deadline of 12th of April 2012, at 17:00.00 Brussels local time. The indicative budget is 291 million euros.

Several objectives of the following Challenges are open: Challenge 2: Cognitive systems and robotics, Challenge 4: Technologies for Digital Content and Languages, Challenge 5: ICT for Health, Ageing Well, Inclusion and Governance, Challenge 8: ICT for Learning and Access to Cultural Resources, Future and Emerging Technologies (FET) and International cooperation -partnership building and support to dialogues-.

For more information:
Download the call fiche
Visit the ICT wiki
Visit the Participants portal

European Commission publishes draft ICT PSP Work programme for 2012

The CIP ICT Committee has recently approved the draft ICT PSP Work Programme 2012. The ICT PSP supports the realisation of European policies and in particular the Digital agenda for Europe and is aligned with its priorities. The programme addresses obstacles hindering further and better use of ICT based products and services and barriers for the development of high growth businesses, notably SMEs, in this field.

In order to optimise the impact of Union support, funding is concentrated on a limited number of themes and objectives. WP 2012 focuses on 5 themes:

– ICT for "smart" cities
– Digital content, open data and creativity
– ICT for health, ageing well and inclusion
– Innovative government and public services
– Trusted eServices and other actions

The 6th ICT PSP Call for Proposal is expected to open from 1 February to 15 May 2012. An information day on Call 6 is foreseen the 3 February 2012. Confirmation of the date, the exact venue and the draft agenda will be published during this week on the ICT PSP website.

Download the draft ICT PSP programme

Please note that the document is still subject to the formal approval by the Commission expected in January 2012.

Horizon 2020, the new EU programme for research and innovation

The European Commission published yesterday its Communication on Horizon 2020, the new R&I Framework Programme.
Amongst the novelties are:

-Major simplification through a simpler programme architecture;
-Integration of research and innovation by providing seamless and coherent funding from idea to market;
-A strong focus on creating business opportunities out of our response to the major concerns common to people in Europe and beyond, i.e. ‘societal challenges’;
-Focus on SME with a special instrument.
-Sustainable development will be an overarching objective of Horizon 2020.

Information and Communications Technologies in Horizon 2020
The overall aim of EU research and innovation in ICT under Horizon 2020 is to bring the benefits of progress in these technologies to European citizens and businesses. In particular, ICT in Horizon 2020 will support the development of ICT in Science, ICT in industrial leadership and ICT in societal challenges.

For more information:
Read the Communication
Visit the website

The European Seal of e-Excellence, seeking Innovative Digital Media and ICT Companies

The European Seal of e-Excellence Seeks Innovative Digital Media and ICT Companies for the 10th Anniversary of the Award

• Are you an ICT company at the forefront of technology?
• Do you market your products & services internationally?

Applications are online at www.seal-of-excellence.org. Deadline 31 December 2011.

The winners will be announced at CeBIT, the most prestigious ICT fair in Europe on 6 March 2012.

More info: www.seal-of-excellence.org

Fostering EU-Latin America ICT policy dialogue

Organized by the FORESTA project funded under the EU’s 7Th Framework Programme to support R&D cooperation between Latin America and Europe in the field of ICT, the conference ‘Fostering EU-Latin America ICT Policy Dialogue’ will take place in Brussels, Belgium, on Monday and Tuesday 28 and 29 November 2011.

The event will be an important forum for European and Latin-American research stakeholders to discuss strategies to intensify cooperation in Information and Communication Technologies. It bring together stakeholders from ICT research, industry and industry federations, decision-makers, European and Latin-American research and innovation funding agencies, as well as SMEs and large companies from each region interested in cooperation with Latin America and with Europe.

‘Fostering EU-Latin America ICT Policy Dialogue’ event will use panels and round tables to elicit the insights of invited experts and inputs from the audience in order to develop strategic recommendations in support of a reinforced EU-LA ICT cooperation. The recommendations will be streamlined into a Joint Declaration that will be presented to representatives of the European Commission, the European Parliament and Latin-American governments in the closing session of the event to be held at the European Parliament.

EMF will actively participate at the event presenting Pro-Ideal and Pro-Ideal Plus projects outcomes, including the success story of the Project Angels Coaching course.

More information

LLP Infoday 2012, 28 October, Brussels

Organised by the European Commission (Direction General Education and Culture) and the Education, Audiovisual & Culture Executive Agency, The Infoday 2012 wants to give useful information on the priorities of the 2012 call and what's new to the programme. The event will also provide practical advice on the preparation and submission of proposals, and on the management of grants.

EMF will activelly take part in this event, looking for new projects opportunities in Session 3.2: Key activity 3 Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) and promoting the two running LLP projects on e-Jobs e-Skills and e-Competences in which it participates: www.ejobs-observatory.eu and www.eqf-iserve.eu

More information