21/12/2004

The 4^th call for proposals for the programme “Information Society Technologies (IST)” of the 6^th Framework Progarmme, an area in which Greek research teams have a remarkable participation until today, was published on 1 December 2004. The call has a budget of 1.120 Meuro, with closing date on 22 March 2005. 

The new call for proposals and the revised workprogramme for the IST (2005-2006) were presented by the representatives of the European Commission, E. Filos and A. Chrissafis, at the information days organised by the National Documentation Centre (EKT) in Athens and Thessaloniki, on 13 and 14 December 2004, respectively.

The events were organised within the framework of EKT’s activities as National Contact Point for FP6, in collaboration with the General Secretariat for Research and Technology, and with the support of the European Commission (DG Research). The event in Thessaloniki was co-organised with the Research Committee of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki.

During the events, Mr Chrissafis made a detailed presentation on strategic objectives of the 4^th call for proposals, such as: e-Safety, Co-operative Systems for Road Transport, ΙCT Research for Innovative Government, Integrated biomedical information for better health - Technology-enhanced Learning and Strengthening the Integration of the ICT research effort in an Enlarged Europe. Moreover, he referred to the participation rules, the instruments and the processes for the submission and evaluation of proposals.  

Mr Filos presented an overview of important achievements resulting from the eEurope initiative. He underlined that the Internet penetration in European homes has doubled, the Internet access prices have fallen and the broadband connectivity has increased. Moreover, Europe has the world’s fastest research network (Geant), while a large amount of public services are available on-line.

Mr Filos also presented the revised workprogramme for IST for the period 2005-2006, of total budget 1.8 billion euro. The revised workprogramme includes, among others, sharper descriptions of each strategic objective, precisions on the use of instruments and budget distribution between instruments adapted to each strategic objective.  

Another key speaker of the events was the National Representative, Mr X. Tsilimparis, who presented the report "Integrated Programme Portfolio Analysis – IPPA 2004", with statistics and conclusions from the participation of European research teams in the first calls of IST. According to the report, 1,9 out of 3,8 billion euro has been spent in calls in 2003-2005. The European Commission received approximately 2.500 proposals and supported more than 400 projects, involving more than 6.500 bodies. 

The representative of EKT, Mrs M. Koutrokoi, presented the activities of the National Contact Point and the national node of the Ideal-IST network for partner search in IST projects. Mrs Koutrokoi referred to the operation of the Help Desk, the publication and dissemination of information material, the development of a website for the IST, the revised edition of EKT’s Guide for FP6 and the development of a Discussion Forum for IST on EKT’s web site.

During the event in Thessaloniki, the National Representative for the Preparatory Action for Security Research (PASR), Prof. T. Pagkalos, presented PASR in relation to the strategic objective of IST “Towards a global dependability and security framework”.  

Prof. Pagkalos referred to the first call for proposals (closing date: 23/06/2004) and presented the workprogramme for 2005 and the expected call for proposals. Moreover, he presented support activities realized in cooperation with EKT, as National Contact Point, such as the Discussion Forum for PASR that has been operating on EKT’s website and the information day that is expected to be organised for the second call for proposals. 

The presentations of the information day and the photos are available on EKT’s website (http://www.ekt.gr/ncpfp6/ist).

It is noted that the revised version of EKT’s Guide for the 6^th Framework Programme has been recently concluded. The Guide includes, among others, the thematic priorities and the instruments of the Programme, the national participation in the first call for proposals of FP6, useful advise for the submission of proposals, etc. The Guide is available on EKT’s website for the 6^th Framework Programme (http://www.ekt.gr/ncpfp6).

Information
National Documentation Centre 
National Contact Point for the Programme IST of FP6
Mrs Maria Koutrokoi 
Tel.: +30 210 7273917, fax: 210 7246824
E-mail: ist@ekt.gr