A revised draft work programme FOOD (dated 21 May 2008) is now available. Special attention is drawn to international collaboration.

Please contact Gerhard Gass, Euresearch Head office if you would like to have a look at it.

Its final version will probably be published in July 2008 with a submission deadline for proposals in Autumn 2008 (November?).

If you are interested in one of the topics proposed, it will be our pleasure to support you in the preparation of a project proposal. Contact us now!

Those who are familiar with the proposal and negotiation submission forms know that in the past, participants had to provide to the Commission their legal and financial information every time they submit a proposal or negotiate a contract.

To eliminate these redundant requests for information, now in FP7 organisations are invited to register only once in the Unique Registration Facility or URF.

After registration, every organisation receives a Participant Identification Code (or PIC) which they will be able to use in all proposals submissions and negotiations.

The Participant Identification Code (PIC) is a 9 digits unique identifier for every validated legal entity. Participants will not have to submit their legal and financial information (and supporting documents) each time they submit a proposal or negotiate a grant agreement, but just their PIC.

As of 28 April 2008, the Unique Registration Facility (URF) is available via a Web interface.

This interface allows online registration of new organisations. For organisations that are already registered and have a PIC online access for viewing your data and requesting updates will be possible.

To get this access, your organisation has to nominate one person (usually from your central administration) the so-called Legal Entity Appointed Representative (LEAR).

Guidance and forms for appointing LEARs are available here.

A revised draft work programme HEALTH (dated 30 April 2008) is now available. Please contact Sacra Tomisawa (SBF) if you would like to have a look at it.

The work programme will probably be published in July 2008.

The European Commission will outsource non-political programs such as FP7 to newly setup Executive agencies.

The task of executive agencies is to execute specific activities that would normally have been carried out by specific departments within the European Commission. As they concentrate on this management role, and have no policy remit, executive agencies are supposed to be more effective and more efficient in addressing the needs of their client base (in this case the research communities).

These agencies are new organisations established by the European Commission which will be entrusted with certain tasks relating to the management of one or more Community programmes. Project officers will be moving from the European Commission to these new Executive agencies.

The setup of these new agencies is likely to create a major disturbance for all at the end of this year when the transfer is due to take place.

Subject to available resources, The Finance Helpdesk proposes to come to your premises and give personally tailored workshops for your organisations. Topics covered include financial issues and general FP7 themes.

If you are interested, please contact The Finance Helpdesk.

The Finance Helpdesk plans to maintain a public list of FP6 and FP7 experienced Auditors.

A country by country Auditor list will soon be added to the Helpdesk Website.

For the first time ever at European level, public/private partnerships, involving industry, the research community and public authorities, are being set up to pursue ambitious common research objectives under several Joint Technology Initiatives (JTIs).

ENIACon the nanoelectronics sector, ARTEMIS for embedded computing systems and IMI, the Innovative Medicines Initiativehave just published calls for proposals.

CleanSky, an initiative aiming at an improvement of the impact of air transport on the environment, will soon follow.

For comprehensive information about JTIs, please refer to the RAPID press releases.