In this issue:

• New Call for IRSES Proposals
• Call Summary - November 2009
• Update on Marie Curie Fellowships
• Update on Marie Curie Reintegration Grants
• Update on Health activities
• New FRENZ Training Programme
• Gender in Research
• President and Foreign Minister for Europe
• Portfolios announced for the new Commission
• 2008 report on EU’s research and technological development activities

New Calls

Deadline: 25 March 2010

The European Commission (EC) launched, on 25 November 2009, their call for proposals for the International Research Staff Exchange Scheme (IRSES). This scheme aims to facilitate the development of stronger organisational links between research groups in Europe, and its certain ‘preferred’ countries; including New Zealand. The IRSES programme differs from most other Marie Curie activities in that it focuses on embedding links at organisational, rather than individual, level.

IRSES is a secondment scheme to link at least two independent (not linked) organisations in different European countries (Member and Associated States) with at least one in a third country (e.g. NZ). Several individuals should be exchanged between Europe and NZ over the duration of the project (3-4 years), with each individual moving for 1-12 months.

Although mainly intended for research staff, it is also possible to exchange technical and management staff, where appropriate.

The programme is open to all areas of research related to the Framework Programme. As a secondment activity, there is no funding from either the EC or NZ for salaries or research costs. These are expected to be borne by the host organisations in a demonstration of their commitment to a sustainable research partnership.

The EC provides funding to support researchers to come to NZ from Europe; and a NZ (MoRST/RSNZ) counterpart budget provides travel and subsistence funds to researchers going from NZ to Europe. Overall, the exchange between Europe and NZ should be balanced. Transfers between the European groups are not funded at all from this scheme.

The information package for this call for proposals can be downloaded from the EC’s calls web page, or from the FRENZ website. The most important document that you will require is the Guide for Applicants, as this illustrates the format of the proposal, gives an indication of the evaluation process and also outlines the rules for the partnerships. Templates for the proposal may be downloaded from the Electronic Proposal Submission System (EPSS) shortly after the European Coordinator has registered the proposal online.

The proposal must be submitted by one of the European partners as the co-ordinator, not NZ. All proposals will be subject to the EC’s proposal evaluation process. Further information on the process for NZ funding will be made available shortly.

Researchers interested in this programme should contact their research office, and FRENZ, at the earliest opportunity.

Marie Curie International Research Staff Exchange Scheme

Identifier: FP7-PEOPLE-2010-IRSES
Specific programme: People
Theme(s): PEOPLE
Type: Call for Proposal
Publication date: 2009-11-25
Deadline: 2010-03-25  17:00:00 (Brussels local time)
Budget: 30,000,000 €

More information

Clean Sky JTI 2009-02

Identifier: SP1-JTI-CS-2009-02
Specific programme: Cooperation
Theme(s): Joint Technology Initiatives (Annex IV-SP1)
Type: Call for Proposal
Publication date: 2009-11-25
Deadline: 2010-02-23  17:00:00 (Brussels local time)
Budget: 8,377,700 €

More information

ICT6

Identifier: FP7-ICT-2009-6
Specific programme: Cooperation
Theme(s): Information and Communication Technologies
Type: Call for Proposal
Publication date: 2009-11-24
Deadline: 2010-04-13  17:00:00 (Brussels local time)
Budget: 286,000,000 €

More information

Marie Curie Co-funding of Regional, National and International Programmes

Identifier: FP7-PEOPLE-2010-COFUND
Specific programme: People
Theme(s): PEOPLE
Type: Call for Proposal
Publication date: 2009-11-18
Deadline: 2010-02-18  17:00:00 (Brussels local time)
Budget: 75,000,000 €

More information

Results News

The evaluation of the 2009 Marie Curie International Incoming Fellowship, International Outgoing Fellowship, and Intra-European Fellowship calls has been completed and researchers are already beginning to receive their Evaluation Summary Reports (ESRs). Further, the EC has launched a list of proposals (by acronym) with a statement as to whether proposals are above or below the threshold for funding (lists attached).

Research managers who know the acronym of proposals involving their researchers can check the relevant list but should be aware that whilst the coding of ‘above’ means that the proposal has met the minimum threshold required for funding, this does not necessarily mean that the proposal has been ‘successful’ or that it will proceed to negotiation.

From this preliminary information, it is clear that the quality of proposals is again very high, with at least 70% of proposals exceeding the minimum threshold for funding of 70%. In previous rounds, this has sometimes resulted in proposals scoring >85% not scoring highly enough to reach the main list for funding. Patience is recommended until the EC provides the ranked list of proposals, where:

A = proposals to go forward to negotiation (mainlist)
B = proposals held in reserve, in case additional funds are available
C = proposals above the minimum threshold but no funding is available
D = proposals that were below the minimum threshold (70%)
E = ineligible proposals

It is expected that the first grant agreements with successful applicants will be concluded by 1 February 2010.

A summary of the outcomes of each of the three calls is provided below.

Intra-European Fellowships

International Incoming Fellowships

International Outgoing Fellowships

The 2010 call for these Marie Curie Fellowships is expected in March 2010, with a deadline in August 2010. However, since the proposal structure is virtually identical year to year, researchers interested in developing a proposal for the 2010 deadline could use the 2009 Guide for Applicants as a provisional template prior to the call launch.

Further information:

Marie Curie Intra-European Fellowships for Career Development

Marie Curie International Incoming Fellowships

Marie Curie Outgoing Fellowships for Career Development

European researchers who used the 2009 call for FP7 People Programme ‘Reintegration Grants’ as an opportunity to re-establish their career in Europe will begin to hear feedback on their proposals in the coming weeks.

The EC has announced that 221 proposals were received for the Marie Curie International Reintegration Grants (IRG) call. These grants allow European researchers who have been based outside of Europe for more than 3 years to apply for a grant of up to 25000 euros per year, for up to four years, to help them develop their research group in Europe.

A further 100 proposals were received in response to the Marie Curie European Reintegration Grants (ERG) call. These grants allow researchers - who have already been in receipt of Marie Curie grant - to apply for a new grant of up to 15000 euros per year, for up to three years, to build on the experience of their initial period of trans-national mobility and further enhance their research career.

Signature of the first grant agreement is expected around 1 March 2010.

The numbers of proposals received at this latest cut-off point was comparable to previous deadlines, though the slight upward trend has been maintained, as can be seen from the following table of proposals received for all previous cut-off dates during FP7:

The 2010 Marie Curie Reintegration call FP7-PEOPLE-RG-2010 opened on 9 October 2009.  The first cut-off for this new call is 9 March 2010.

Further information:

Marie Curie Reintegration Grants

Update on Health activities

During a recent meeting of the Member and Associated State representatives on the FP7 Cooperation “Health” committee, FRENZ has learned that savings in the negotiation of the 2009 call for proposals has meant that two additional projects are to be funded. These projects, from area 2.4 TRANSLATIONAL RESEARCH IN OTHER MAJOR DISEASES, (acronyms EFACT and NIMBL) would have been previously indicated as ‘reserve’ projects. At this moment, no further information on these projects is available.

Response to the first 2010 calls

Two stage: 460 proposals were received in response to the first stage of the Health-2010-two-stage call, which closed 29 October 2009. The area of diagnostics was most heavily oversubscribed. The first-stage evaluation is expected to be complete by 8 December, with letters inviting successful applicants to submit full proposals sent by email by 11 December. It is expected that <100 proposals will proceed to the second stage, with the deadline for full submissions scheduled for 11 February 2010.

One stage: 244 proposals were received in response to the Health-2010-single-stage call, which closed 19 November. The EC commented that this is fewer proposals than expected, and could, in part, be due to the large number of topics using either large funding schemes (IPs & NoEs) or very small ones (CSA); both of which tend to generate fewer proposals. Consequently, the overall success rate is likely to be around 30%: slightly higher than normal.

Influenza call: 13 proposals were received in response to the targeted call on Influenza. The evaluation process should be complete by 11 December 2009, with coordinators receiving feedback before the end of January 2010. It is expected that 2 projects will be funded from the indicative budget.

Launch of 2nd IMI call

The EC highlighted that the second call for the Innovative Medicines Initiative was launched on 27 November 2009. This activity is a unique Public-Private Partnership (PPP) between the pharmaceutical industry and the European Commission. The IMI's overall goal is to make Europe again the world leader in pharmaceutical research for the benefit of the economy and society, by removing research bottlenecks in the current drug development process. Whilst the activities of the IMI fall under the FP7 umbrella, some of their rules for participation are slightly different.

Expressions of interest, for this second call, should be submitted between 8 January and 8 February 2010.

For further information, please see the IMI web site
The IMI press release on Europa is available here.

FRENZ News

The first event of the recently launched FRENZ training programme took place last week, with five participants undertaking the FP7 for Research Managers course. Feedback for this interactive course, that seeks to apply the knowledge gained in one day to a mock case study proposal from initial conception to budget, has been very positive and it is hoped that many others will travel to Rotorua in the coming months to learn more about FP7 engagement.

Courses available are:

• FRENZ1: FP7 for research managers
• FRENZ2: FP7 administrative issues
• FRENZ3: A researchers guide to FP7
• FRENZ4: Proposal writing for IRSES
• FRENZ5: Marie Curie Incoming and Outgoing International Fellowships
• FRENZ6: The 2011 Call for proposals

All events, except FRENZ1, take place between 10am and 4pm and are normally held on the last Thursday of the month. Participation is free. To register for any of these events, see the FRENZ Training page. To suggest other training, please contact FRENZ directly.

During a recent visit to Brussels, Carole Glynn attended training on the issue of Gender in Research. The workshop considered both the equal opportunities aspect of carrying out a research activity and also the potential gender sensitive issues within research activities themselves.

The workshop was useful in that the EC demands that gender issues be addressed within FP7 projects. However, experience has shown that references to gender in proposals frequently consider only opportunities to increase the profile of women in research and even then in fairly vague terms.

Therefore, the Gender Toolkit provided during the workshop (available online here) provides an excellent resource to understand how to better integrate gender issues into research activities, with case studies in several areas to help researchers to understand that this is not just an issue of political correctness: it could be the way to differentiate your project from the rest.

EC Policy news

The European Council has appointed its first ever President and High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy. The position of President has gone to Herman Van Rompuy who is the current Prime Minister of Belgium. Baroness Ashton, who is currently the UK’s EU Commissioner, responsible for Trade, will take on the role of ‘Foreign Minister’. Provision for the two new posts can be found in the recently ratified Lisbon Treaty, which comes into force on 1 December 2009.

The President of the Council will have responsibility for preparing and chairing the European Council's meetings. This role will replace many of the responsibilities currently undertaken by the EU Member State holding the rotating Presidency of the EU. Mr Van Rompuy has a mandate for two and a half years, renewable once.

The High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy will be responsible for chairing the meetings of the Foreign Affairs Council. This post also combines the role of Vice-President of the European Commission.

The European Council has produced factsheets on both posts.

Further information:
The factsheet on the role of the President is available here.
The factsheet on the role of High Representative is available here.

E President, José Manuel Barroso, has announced the portfolio allocations for his proposed new College of Commissioners, who will serve until 31 October 2014. The College includes a new Commissioner for Research, Innovation and Science, Maire Geoghegan-Quinn of Ireland, currently serving on the European Court of Auditors. The former Research Commissioner, Janez Potoçnik of Slovenia, moves to take responsibility for the Environment portfolio.

New portfolios – with potential FP7 interest - within the EC include:

• ‘Climate Action’, which will be the responsibility of Connie Hedegaard of Denmark
• ‘Justice, Fundamental Rights and Citizenship’, which will be headed by Viviane Reding of Luxembourg, currently Commissioner for Information Society & Media.

However, the most significant change with respect to FP7 is the shift of the Marie Curie Programme Units from Research to the Education and Culture portfolio.

The proposed new College must win approval from the European Parliament (vote of consent on 26 January 2010), before the new EC can be appointed, by the European Council.

Further information:
EC Press Release IP/09/1837 of 27 November 2009 is available here.

Each year, the EC produces an annual report providing an overview of the EU’s research and technological development activities. The 2008 version of the report includes information on policy developments relating to the European Research Area (ERA), the implementation of Framework Programmes and trends in public and private research investment.

The document reports that in 2008, the second year of FP7, over 14,000 proposals were received in response to 55 calls for proposals, of which approximately 2,500 were retained for funding.

The year also saw the establishment of two new executive agencies: one to manage the activities of the European Research Council and the other to manage the research proposal evaluation and project management activities on behalf of the EC Directorates General for Research, Enterprise, Information Society & Media and Energy & Transport.

Policy activity included the launch of the second cycle of the revised Lisbon strategy in the spring, which reaffirmed research and knowledge as one of four key priorities. As part of the Ljubljana process, five ERA initiatives were also launched in 2008: these focus the on mobility of researchers; the exploitation of research; joint programming; a new legal framework for research infrastructures; and a new strategic framework for international science and technology co-operation.

The report ends with an analysis of trends in research policies, finding that increasing the quality and efficiency of the public research base continues to be a key aspect of R&D policy reform in many Member States.

Further information:
The full report is available here.

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