The INNOVER-EAST project targets five of the Eastern Partnership countries (in short, EPCs): Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia and Ukraine) to overcome the bottlenecks of innovation and intensify the levelof cooperation between research and business in the target countries.

The project aims, on  one hand, to develop new skills and competences ininnovation services at relevant organisations in the above countries andon the other hand, to contribute to the learning process on how to bridge knowledge and business with a direct focus on energy efficiency.

In order to reach its objectives, the project will carry out the following activities:
- Facilitate networking among actors in the knowledge/ innovation value chain in order to better focus research on socio-economic needs and to help exploit research results;
- Identify bottlenecks of and opportunities for technology and knowledge transfer in the targeted EPCs (with special focus on start-ups, spin-offs from public research organisations and existing small businesses);
- Improve competencies and mutual learning by the exchange of good practices through twinning, trainings and other means of learning by the active involvement of relevant service providers;
- Develop and provide innovation support services for EPC stakeholders and build partnerships among relevant organisations in the Member States and Associated Countries on one side and in the targeted EPCs on the other side;
- Carry out policy dialogue and produce recommendations for policy makers by organising national policy workshops and international policy conferences to debate and validate the needs identified and solutions offered for more efficient innovation services.

The project consortium involves experienced actors from the whole spectrum of the innovation chain to facilitate effective cooperation and mutual learning, representing 7 EU member states and all of the targeted EPCs.

RERAM = Resource Efficiency and RAw Material use of woodworking industries in Eastern Europe (ENP)

RERAM is an international cooperation project funded by the Seventh Framework Programme of the European Commission in the field of climate protection, resource efficiency and raw materials. It is one of the few FP7-INCO projects addressing the forest-based sector (forestry, woodworking, furniture, paper, bioenergy).

The main objective is to reinforce cooperation and coordination of research and technological innovation between the EU and countries of the European Neighbourhood Policy programme especially in Eastern Europe.

State of play: Why a focus on the woodworking sector in ENP eastern countries? The growing demand for raw wood material in the EU increases pressure on forest resources in Eastern Europe. Non-sustainable forestry and uncontrolled timber harvesting in the Carpathian region (Ukraine, Moldova) and the Caucausus region (Georgia, Armenia, Azerbadjan) lead to significant losses of forest area and far-reaching impacts e.g. disastrous floods. Woodworking industries generate the local demand for wood and are part of the problem due to their large, inefficient raw material use. Woodworking SMEs consuming huge amounts of raw material, per employee, and in total.

RERAM raises awareness on the benefits of resource efficiency and demonstrates technical and organisational solutions for companies. With instructive enterprise checks, trainings, coaching and a broad dissemination, the project targets entrepreneurs and intermediaries to propose pathbreaking new pilot projects.

To valorise synergies and enhance the outreach in the region, the project links to various actors and on-going initiatives. Strengthening domestic potentials of woodworking SMEs, RERAM contributes to sustainable growth, vital employment and climate change adaptation in the forest-based sector of the ENP region.

The consortium comprises 11 organisations from 5 EU member states and 5 ENP eastern countries. RERAM is coordinated by the International Institute of Forestry and Wood Industries NRW e.V. (IIWH) at the University of Münster in Germany. 

The ClusMED project is a Support Action (SA) intended to contribute to international cooperation between EU and MED countries in the field of ICT Regulations in support of Societal Challenges.

ClusMED aims at implementing cooperative research in the ICT sector through the identification, analysis and benchmarking of national ICT regulations, taking into consideration five target MED countries (Lebanon, Egypt, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco). The project will focus on the role of regulations as enablers of development in the ICT sector: to this end, it will assess and compare the ICT regulatory frameworks currently operating in MED countries, with the aim of identifying and sharing best practices. MED ICT regulations will also be benchmarked against some EU regulatory standards and experiences in overcoming barriers to the full exploitation of ICTs for tackling Societal Challenges. This objective will be mainly achieved through the implementation of multi-stakeholders workshops, which will also contribute to the setting up of a permanent dialogue between European and Mediterranean countries on regulatory issues in the ICT sector, as one of the key drivers of sustainable and inclusive growth.

In order to maximize the impact and diffusion of project results, ClusMED will build synergies with other relevant initiatives concerning international cooperation with MED countries, in particular with MOSAIC and MED Dialogue, the other two projects resulting from the call “FP7-ICT-2011.10.3 International partnership building and support to dialogues” and with EMERG, the Euro-Mediterranean Regulators Group initiative. ClusMED will also establish a proper exchange of information with relevant ICT European Technology Platforms.

The Mediterranean Region will become one of the most vulnerable areas to global change. While in European Mediterranean countries land abandonment is promoting new unmanaged forest cover, increasing fire and pest risks, in the south of the basin, forest intensification results in the threat of desertification. Forest management strategies must promote mitigation of global change effects and guarantee the sustainable use of ecosystem goods and services, all in order to achieve a resource efficient, low-carbon economy. Spatial analysis tools from the north of the Mediterranean could help stopping deforestation while obtaining economic benefits of landscape management in the south, and traditional knowledge from the south may help decreasing land abandonment in the north by developing eco-innovative business.

MENFRI will become a dialogue and action platform in forestry, encouraging scientific and technological collaboration within the Mediterranean. The main goal of the project is therefore to create a favourable environment for the development of forestry as an innovative and job creating business sector in this region while facing climate change. The project will help bridging the gap between research and innovation by improving performance in managing, transferring and using the knowledge resulting from ecological research and forest management and by better aligning both research and economic objectives to societal needs.

Work Packages:

WP1 Management of the project and coordination with INCO-R2I community.

WP2 Mediterranean assessment of forest spatial analysis resources and tools.

WP3 Mediterranean assessment of traditional management strategies and techniques.

WP4 Mediterranean assessment of the forestry sector and network establishment.

WP5 Training and exchange of best practices.

WP6 Dissemination and exploitation of knowledge and interface of EC.

Expected Results:

Elaboration of a Spatial Information Toolkit

Elaboration of a Traditional Management Compilation Toolkit.

Organisation of visits and courses on forest business, spatial resources, traditional initiatives, business innovation, COSME & Horizon 2020.

Organization of a brokerage event.

Elaboration of a Mediterranean R2I Forestry Policy Guide.

Conference in the European Parliament.

INNO INDIGO is a horizontal ERA-Net with India and is the successor project of New INDIGO (2009-2013), which successfully implemented schemes for EU-India transnational calls for proposals (New INDIGO Partnership Programme). The calls have developed from simple networking and mobility funding towards the funding of research projects open for Small and Middle size enterprises (SME) involvement. Through these activities the EU-India STI cooperation has already been put on a smooth basis by the regular publication of joint transnational calls. The applied call mechanisms proved to be applicable even with changing funding partners, thematic scopes, funding amounts and funding instruments.

Within the lifetime of INNO INDIGO the implementation of three calls for proposals is foreseen. Beyond the preparation and implementation of joint calls one central aim is to optimize the outreach of INNO INDIGO and facilitate the networking of funding organizations in Europe and India.

INNO INDIGO will offer opportunities for interested funding organizations to participate in all steps taken towards the implementation and management of EU-India transnational calls. The experiences from the past five years will be used in order to further enhance EU-India cooperation, as well as in order to support and further develop bilateral as well as multilateral activities. There are various new elements addressed in the INNO INDIGO ERA-Net as e.g. how to bring ideas to market, how to support young researchers, how to develop new forms of collaboration etc.

INNO INDIGO will also consider input from other relevant sources like the Indian government, the European Commission or the EU-MS/AS (also in the context of the GSO).

To conclude: By the various approaches of joint funding it was examined and proofed, that new EU-India funding mechanisms are technically feasible, they are attractive, they add value to the collaboration and their results are positive. The next step would be to reach a higher relevance of the mechanisms and to create higher impact and outreach aiming at the development of a persisting, non-project-based institutional implementation.

Main objectives:

• Innovation related approaches: in the focus of INNO INDIGO are the involvement of SMEs/Industries as well as Clusters/Networks of Excellence/Competence

• Regions: INNO INDIGO will connect its efforts to the support of “Innovation” as a tasks mainly assisted by the “regions” in Europe and India and address regions as funding partners

• Provide budget for research: INNO INDIGO will focus on motivating  funding organizations in Europe and India to participate in joint calls for proposals

• Visibility: INNO INDIGO will be successful when becoming a common platform for European and Indian funding organizations to finance jointly research and innovation, especially for EU countries that do not have bilateral programmes with India and develop visions on new forms of collaboration

• Policy driven: INNO INDIGO will translate political decisions from different sources (EU-MS, India Gov, Regions, SME-Associations, SFIC and the GSO) into practical and tangible funding mechanisms.

The Indigo Policy project is a three year FP7 coordination and support action project with India. It supports and coordinates bilateral activities and initiatives between Europe and India in order to build mutual areas of interest between the two regions in Scientific, Technological and Innovation fields. The project builds up on the S&T Agreement signed in 2001, reinforcing a long standing cooperation that started in the mid 80’s between the EU and India. The treaty has been extended in 2009 a year where other important policy initiatives have been developed. They are now being translated into high quality and mutually beneficial cooperative programs, projects and policy dialogues. Indigo Policy is committed to support these STI dialogue structures and projects. 

Indigo Policy Project’s main objectives are: 

-  supporting the Group of Senior Officials (GSO) through GSO thematic groups and meetings. The GSO is composed by officials from India, the Member States and the European Commission and helps the EU-India Strategic Forum for International S&T Cooperation (SFIC) in guiding, coordinating and monitoring the Indo-European partnership. Indigo Policy will assist the GSO working group with organisational support and as a Secretariat for its Thematic Groups. 

- supporting and coordinating twinning programs between Indian and European researchers and/ or institutions in the field of Biotechnology. A small twinning program will be implemented, based on good practice examples. pilot twinning projects will be selected  for grants that will enable researchers to initiate exploratory visits, discuss their future joint activities and start collaboration. 

- supporting and coordinating the three new editions of the EU-INDIA STI Cooperation DAYS. The 2-day annual events will be hosted in India (twice) and in Europe (once) with the aim of promoting and enhancing EU-India Scientific Cooperation. During these events participants coming from the Industry and Research fields, will learn more about funding opportunities and the rules of participation. They will also be invited to contribute to the definition of future research topics of mutual interest for the EU and India.

- setting up a Water Technology Platform in India. These will represent the strategic moment of contact between the different actors - companies, institutions, universities and financial groups - operating in Europe and India in the specific area of technological innovation in the water sector. They will define a thematic water technology roadmap, develop a business model and support its implementation 

Main Project’s target groups are:

•    Policy makers
•    Science policy experts
•    Researchers 
•    SMEs and large Companies
•    Indian and European 7th Framework programme and bilateral programmes project participants
•    Funding agencies

The overall objective of NANOMAT-EPC is to support the deployment of societally beneficial nano- and materials technologies in the EPC, in order to increase exploitation of their scientific results and contribute to the United Nations Millennium Development Goals. The project will achieve its overall objective via the following groups of activities:

Project Coordinator: Giles Brandon, Intelligentsia Consultants

The overall aim of the SECURE-R2I project is to reinforce cooperation with Eastern Partnership Countries (EPC) on bridging the gap between research and innovation for Horizon 2020 Societal Challenge 7 “Secure Societies”. The research domains encompassed by “Secure Societies” are broad and include ICT; Security; Nanosciences, Nanotechnologies, Materials (NMP); and Social Sciences and Humanities (SSH). These research domains also form the basis of important economic sectors in the EPC, with many potential benefits for the EU, but which also need European support to increase their exploitation. Addressing this issue, the SECURE-R2I project will assist R&D and innovation (RDI) organisations in EPC via a range of knowledge and technology transfer activities with the support of European specialists. The activities include:

Project Coordinator: Giles Brandon, Intelligentsia Consultants

Project Manager: Julien Sudre, Intelligentsia Consultants

The project aims to establish strategic partnerships between Shulgin State Road Research Institute (DNDI) and EU road research centres in order to facilitate knowledge sharing.
The project will help DNDI to develop partnerships and set up joint research programmes through networking. It also aims to strengthen the ability of Ukrainian researchers to take part in future FP7 funded research projects through training on project management accompanied by secondment of DNDI staff at the Brussels office of the Forum of European National Highway Research Laboratories. The sharing and dissemination of knowledge between DNDI and research institutes in member states will be facilitated by setting up a bilingual website, translating scientific results of DNDI into English and disseminating them through various channels.

Background of the project

Ukraine plays a strategic role in facilitating East-West transport connections, the countrys strategic road network. It however, cannot handle the increasing traffic load due to insufficient technical parameters. The overall objective of the INCRIS coordinating action is to ensure that the cooperation capacities of Ukraines leading road research centre, the Shulgin State Road Research Institute (DNDI) are reinforced in order for it to foster its integration into the European Research Area and this improve road infrastructure in Ukraine through joint research.

Coordinator

Shulgin State Road Research Institute (DNDI)

Kiev, Ukraine

Dr. Valeriy Vyrozhemsky

vv@dorndi.org.ua

T.:+380-444562647

The Nanotwinning Project is aimed at one of FP7 Thematic priorities - Nanosciences, Nanotechnologies, Materials & new Production Technologies. The project provides a number of events, which are focused on increasing opportunities for collaboration in the field of nanotechnology via twining of the Institute of Physics of National Academy of Sciences of Ukaine (IOP) with institutions of ERA. IOP is also the coordinator of the project.

Coordinator

Institute Of Physics of National Academy of Science Of Ukraine (IOP)

Kiev, Ukraine

http://www.iop.kiev.ua/site/index.php

Coordinator

Dr. Olena Fesenko

fesenko@iop.kiev.ua

Tel.: 380-445259841