The European Commission is to take part in this year’s American Association for the Advancement of Science’s (AAAS) annual meeting, beginning 11 February in Washington, DC.
The five-day conference is among the world’s largest and most prestigious general scientific events and each year brings together thousands of international scientists, policy makers and science journalists.
The programme typically includes keynote speeches, scientific symposia, an exhibition and press briefings on recent scientific discoveries.
This year’s event is centred on ‘Global Science Engagement’ and will feature a number of scientific symposia organised by the European Commission under the theme ‘Destination Europe’.
Topics include ‘Improving Cancer Patient Care: Trade-offs between Efficacy and Toxicity’, ‘Personalised Medicine: Big Data and Machine Learning’, ‘Integrating Science into Policy Making: What Works and Why’ and ‘Open Science: Global Perspectives and Prospects’.
The Commission will also have a booth (No. 1717) at the exhibition where conference participants can find out about career and funding opportunities in the EU.
Registration is open throughout the meeting here.
The post Commission attending AAAS annual meeting appeared first on Horizon 2020 Projects.
Projeler
A new €6m research project is to shed light on how coasts and rivers affect the health of populations across Europe.
The Horizon 2020-funded Blue Health programme will explore how improved access to aquatic environments can benefit public wellbeing while also investigating their potential risks.
Europe has 91,000km of coastline, and more than half of its population live within 50km of the sea. But little research has been conducted into the health impacts of the so-called ‘blue’ environment.
The project will build on pioneering work already completed in the UK and will see researchers assess the effects of large scale initiatives such as dockland regeneration in Estonia and flood-proofing in the Netherlands.
Canal cycle paths in Italy, coastal walking in the UK and man-made environments such as storm drains and water reservoirs will also be investigated over the four and half-year programme, which will additionally explore how virtual aquatic and coastal environments could improve patient wellbeing in UK and Swedish hospitals.
“It’s fantastic that we’re leading this pan-European project here in Truro,” said Dr Matthew White, environmental psychologist at the University of Exeter Medical School.
“We’re hoping to use our findings to develop guidelines on how health should be considered when creating and improving access to aquatic environments, ultimately informing decision makers in healthcare, public health and town planning.”
Institutions in Spain, Sweden, Estonia, the Netherlands, Germany, Greece and Italy are also involved in the programme, which was launched in January.
The post H2020 exploring coasts and health link appeared first on Horizon 2020 Projects.
More than 100 countries in the EU and worldwide are taking part in the 13th annual Safer Internet Day. Designed to promote the safe use of the internet for children and adults, political and industrial stakeholders and policy makers are playing their part.
Thousands of events are being organised in Europe that offer the chance for young people to learn what checks ought to be made prior to sharing pictures on social media, to learn about privacy violations and to discover how to report nefarious behaviour safely and anonymously.
Commissioner for the Digital Economy and Society Gunther H Oettinger said: “Safer Internet Day is one of the highlights of our Better Internet for Kids strategy. What started in 2004 as a European event under the Safer Internet Programme has turned into a global celebration that reached more than 28 million people in Europe and 60 million users worldwide last year.”
The EU co-funds safer internet centres and supports the Better Internet for Kids platform through its Connecting Europe Facility scheme.
Supporters can participate on Twitter by adding a badge (available here) to their profile picture.
The post Safer Internet Day 2016 appeared first on Horizon 2020 Projects.
The Enterprise Europe Network, the National Contact Points for nanotechnologies, advanced materials or advanced manufacturing and processing technologies and the Knowledge Transfer Network are holding an exclusive UK event and international partnering platform to launch their 2017 Horizon 2020 nanotechnologies, advanced materials, biotechnology and production (NMBP) round of calls.
The single-day event is free and will see the introduction for 2017 proposals, present the European Commission’s outlook and expectations and form a unique international network in an attempt to find successful future SMEs and entrepreneurs.
The programme will include presentations from the European Commission and its evaluators and an opportunity to pitch your expertise in front of leading research organisations and cutting-edge innovators from across industry.
The event will take place in Birmingham, UK, at the Austin Court Conference Centre on 15 June 2016. More information will be made available in due course here.
The post Horizon 2020 European Brokerage Event appeared first on Horizon 2020 Projects.
International military and police are to be taught peacekeeping skills by a new virtual reality game under development by an EU-wide consortium.
‘Gaming for Peace’ will train all military, police and civilian personnel being deployed on EU conflict prevention and peacebuilding missions.
Entering the game as avatars, users will role-play as members of another organisation, a different gender or a different nationality, and face simulations of different conflict zone scenarios in order to develop their communication and co-operation, gender awareness and cultural competency skills.
“Current training for personnel involved in conflict prevention and peacebuilding missions does not prioritise the critical softer skills of communication and gender and cultural awareness,” explained project co-ordinator Assistant Professor Anne Holohan, of Trinity College Dublin (TCD), Ireland.
“Most missions require a variety of organisations to co-ordinate and co-operate together – militaries from different nations in Europe, police from all over Europe, civilian actors from different countries. Success in preventing conflict is to a considerable extent dependent on their ability to work together well in the mission.
“The ‘Gaming for Peace’ tool will allow personnel to role-play someone of a different gender or ethnicity or who is part of a different type of organisation, leading to greater understanding, better communication and co-operation, and a more optimal performance as peacebuilders will result.”
The game has been funded by a €2m grant from the European Commission’s Horizon 2020 programme and is being supported by the European Security and Defence College, which oversees the training of all EU personnel deployed on peacekeeping missions, NATO and a number of UN bodies.
Led by TCD, the project brings 14 collaborative partners together from academia, military, police, civil actors and business, including the Police Service of Northern Ireland, the Finnish and Polish militaries, Laurea University in Kerava, Finland, the Ted Kennedy Institute at NUI Maynooth, Ireland, and Irish computer games company Haunted Planet.
“Training a large number of personnel before deployment on a mission is expensive and logistically difficult, with most training involving travel and fixed times and, consequently, many personnel get little or sporadic training, particularly in the area of soft skills such as communication and gender and cultural awareness,” added Holohan.
“‘Gaming for Peace’ will produce a game that is accessible to all personnel before deployment at minimal cost. The only thing that is required is an internet connection.”
The game is due for completion by 2018.
The post EU project to train international military appeared first on Horizon 2020 Projects.
International military and police are to be taught peacekeeping skills by a new virtual reality game under development by an EU-wide consortium.
‘Gaming for Peace’ will train all military, police and civilian personnel being deployed on EU conflict prevention and peacebuilding missions.
Entering the game as avatars, users will role-play as members of another organisation, a different gender or a different nationality, and face simulations of different conflict zone scenarios in order to develop their communication and co-operation, gender awareness and cultural competency skills.
“Current training for personnel involved in conflict prevention and peacebuilding missions does not prioritise the critical softer skills of communication and gender and cultural awareness,” explained project co-ordinator Assistant Professor Anne Holohan, of Trinity College Dublin (TCD), Ireland.
“Most missions require a variety of organisations to co-ordinate and co-operate together – militaries from different nations in Europe, police from all over Europe, civilian actors from different countries. Success in preventing conflict is to a considerable extent dependent on their ability to work together well in the mission.
“The ‘Gaming for Peace’ tool will allow personnel to role-play someone of a different gender or ethnicity or who is part of a different type of organisation, leading to greater understanding, better communication and co-operation, and a more optimal performance as peacebuilders will result.”
The game has been funded by a €2m grant from the European Commission’s Horizon 2020 programme and is being supported by the European Security and Defence College, which oversees the training of all EU personnel deployed on peacekeeping missions, NATO and a number of UN bodies.
Led by TCD, the project brings 14 collaborative partners together from academia, military, police, civil actors and business, including the Police Service of Northern Ireland, the Finnish and Polish militaries, Laurea University in Kerava, Finland, the Ted Kennedy Institute at NUI Maynooth, Ireland, and Irish computer games company Haunted Planet.
“Training a large number of personnel before deployment on a mission is expensive and logistically difficult, with most training involving travel and fixed times and, consequently, many personnel get little or sporadic training, particularly in the area of soft skills such as communication and gender and cultural awareness,” added Holohan.
“‘Gaming for Peace’ will produce a game that is accessible to all personnel before deployment at minimal cost. The only thing that is required is an internet connection.”
The game is due for completion by 2018.
The post EU project to train international military appeared first on Horizon 2020 Projects.
Shining lasers at superconductors enables them to work at higher temperatures, new research led by the Max Planck Institute for the Structure and Dynamics of Matter, Germany, has shown.
Superconductors, materials that conduct electricity without losing power and produce strong magnetic fields, at present only work at very low temperatures and require liquid nitrogen or helium to maintain that temperature. But an international team of scientists has discovered a way to make certain materials superconduct at higher temperatures, as well.
Researchers shone a laser at a material composed of potassium and carbon atoms arranged in ‘buckyball’ (football-like) structures and found it was still superconducting at more than 100 degrees Kelvin (around −170°C).
“If we can design materials that superconduct at higher temperatures, or even room temperature, it would eliminate the need for cooling, which would make [superconductors] less expensive and more practical to use in a variety of applications,” explained Dr Stephen Clark, theoretical physicist at the UK’s University of Bath, which assisted in the research.
He added that his next step will be to “find other superconductors that can be coerced to work at even higher temperatures, possibly even at room temperature”.
The Hamburg Centre for Ultrafast Imaging, Germany; INSTM UdR Trieste-ST and Elettra – Sincrotrone Trieste, Università di Roma ‘Sapienza’ and Università degli Studi di Parma, Italy; Oxford University, UK; and the National University of Singapore also collaborated in the research, which was funded by the European Research Council under the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme.
The study has been published in the journal Nature.
The post Study: Lasers enable superconduction at high temperature appeared first on Horizon 2020 Projects.
Shining lasers at superconductors enables them to work at higher temperatures, new research led by the Max Planck Institute for the Structure and Dynamics of Matter, Germany, has shown.
Superconductors, materials that conduct electricity without losing power and produce strong magnetic fields, at present only work at very low temperatures and require liquid nitrogen or helium to maintain that temperature. But an international team of scientists has discovered a way to make certain materials superconduct at higher temperatures, as well.
Researchers shone a laser at a material composed of potassium and carbon atoms arranged in ‘buckyball’ (football-like) structures and found it was still superconducting at more than 100 degrees Kelvin (around −170°C).
“If we can design materials that superconduct at higher temperatures, or even room temperature, it would eliminate the need for cooling, which would make [superconductors] less expensive and more practical to use in a variety of applications,” explained Dr Stephen Clark, theoretical physicist at the UK’s University of Bath, which assisted in the research.
He added that his next step will be to “find other superconductors that can be coerced to work at even higher temperatures, possibly even at room temperature”.
The Hamburg Centre for Ultrafast Imaging, Germany; INSTM UdR Trieste-ST and Elettra – Sincrotrone Trieste, Università di Roma ‘Sapienza’ and Università degli Studi di Parma, Italy; Oxford University, UK; and the National University of Singapore also collaborated in the research, which was funded by the European Research Council under the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme.
The study has been published in the journal Nature.
The post Study: Lasers enable superconduction at high temperature appeared first on Horizon 2020 Projects.
Norrlandsfonden, a trust fund that promotes development in SMEs in Sweden, lends roughly SEK 300 million (~€32m) each year in Norrbotten, Västerbotten, Västernorrland, Jämtland and Gävleborg.
Although an independent trust fund, Norrlandsfonden collaborates with banks, venture capital companies, auditors, county councils, local business development agencies and other players to augment viable and sustainable enterprise in northern Sweden. In one such case, Norrlandsfonden is collaborating with the European Investment Fund (EIF) and benefitting from the support of the European Fund for Strategic Investments (EFSI) under the Horizon 2020 programme’s InnovFin initiative.
European Commission Vice-President Jyrki Katainen said: “The Investment Plan for Europe is bearing fruit across the EU and I am pleased to see Sweden benefitting from the EFSI. The guarantee agreement signed today between the EIF and Norrlandsfonden will help small Swedish companies get access to the financing they need for their businesses to grow.”
The deal, InnovFin’s first transaction in Sweden, is designed to reflect the Commission’s diverse and swift response to demand for funds and make it possible for Norrlandsfonden to offer favourable lending conditions for Sweden’s up and coming, innovative enterprises.
The post Opportunity for Swedish SMEs appeared first on Horizon 2020 Projects.
Norrlandsfonden, a trust fund that promotes development in SMEs in Sweden, lends roughly SEK 300 million (~€32m) each year in Norrbotten, Västerbotten, Västernorrland, Jämtland and Gävleborg.
Although an independent trust fund, Norrlandsfonden collaborates with banks, venture capital companies, auditors, county councils, local business development agencies and other players to augment viable and sustainable enterprise in northern Sweden. In one such case, Norrlandsfonden is collaborating with the European Investment Fund (EIF) and benefitting from the support of the European Fund for Strategic Investments (EFSI) under the Horizon 2020 programme’s InnovFin initiative.
European Commission Vice-President Jyrki Katainen said: “The Investment Plan for Europe is bearing fruit across the EU and I am pleased to see Sweden benefitting from the EFSI. The guarantee agreement signed today between the EIF and Norrlandsfonden will help small Swedish companies get access to the financing they need for their businesses to grow.”
The deal, InnovFin’s first transaction in Sweden, is designed to reflect the Commission’s diverse and swift response to demand for funds and make it possible for Norrlandsfonden to offer favourable lending conditions for Sweden’s up and coming, innovative enterprises.
The post Opportunity for Swedish SMEs appeared first on Horizon 2020 Projects.