OECD Patent Statistics Manual

The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has published a "Patent Statistics Manual" aiming to provide guiding principles for the use of patent data in science and technological measurement.

According to the OECD, the manual "provides guiding principles for the use of patent data in S&T measurement, and recommendations for the compilation and interpretation of patent indicators in this context. It aims to show what patent statistics can be used for, what they cannot be used for, and how to count patents in order to maximise information on S&T activities while minimising statistical noise and biases".

More information about this publication, its table of contents as well as instructions how to access to the document can be found on the OECD site.

New ICT Research and Innovation Strategy - Commission calls for doubling funding

Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) represent 12 million jobs in Europe and the ICT sector represents 6% of EU GDP, driving innovation and competitiveness in all sectors of the economy. But there is an important gap between what Europe produces and what it consumes as the largest global ICT consumer in this knowledge-intensive field.

EU investment to strengthen innovative ICT is not only smaller than the one of its competitors but also heavily fragmented. Public and private investment in ICT research in Europe is less than half that of the US and the EU attracts five times less venture capital than the US.

Against this background, the European Commission has published a new ICT Research and Innovation Strategy proposing to mobilise resources in three interlinked ways:

- In the next decade Europe should double its investments in ICT research and innovation. The EC will increase the annual funding available under the ICT priority from €1.1 in 2010 to €1.7 billion in 2013. Member States should match this budget increase at national level.

- Europe should be the home for more world-class poles of excellence in ICT, making ICT research careers more attractive to bridge the current skills gap.

- The right conditions should be in place for new public private partnerships for ICT-based solutions that are competition and innovation friendly. ICT research and innovation should be integrated into EU policy areas with a significant socio-economic impact such as health, energy and transport with more collaboration between users and producers.

This new strategy is part of the Commission's response to the recommendations of the Aho Panel's evaluation of ICT research and development in the EU's overall research programme.

More information and the full text of the communication can be found in the related EC press release.

European Research on Climate Change

The EC published an overview about FP6 projects on Climate Change funded through FP6, stressing the importance of detecting and describing global change in order to improve prediction of climate change and its impacts.

Projects cover issues on carbon and nitrogen cycle, atmospheric pollutants, climate dynamics and variability, prediction and impacts of climate change, stratospheric ozone, adaptation and mitigation strategies and observing and forecasting systems.

The EC also adopted a Staff Working Document on integrated climate change, based on an International Symposium on the fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The document presents the main research priorities and knowledge gaps and outlines EU-funded activities on climate change research.

More information about both documents can be found on the "Research: environment" page of the EC.

Ex-post Evaluation of FP6

The report of the independent Expert Group which evaluated FP6, released in mid-February, states lessons learnt from FP6, but also makes recommendations and provides a vision of the future of the EU Framework Programmes.

According to the reviewers, particular attention should be given to a simplification of project implementation and administration, the gender issue, synchronisation with national research efforts and an adequate level of industrial participation.

Their vision focuses on two action lines: 1) Project ideas to be defined through a top-down process to integrate the problems, concerns and questions of citizens (e.g. climate change, ageing society); 2) Project ideas that result from bottom-up activities initiated by researchers, universities and companies.

The full report is available here.

Report on the ICT research and innovation agenda for the next decade

From 4 September to 7 November 2008 the European Commission conducted an online public consultation on "Shaping the ICT research and innovation agenda for the next decade". The final report of this consultation has now been published.

The results show that energy efficiency, environmental sustainability and health & social care systems were the most important societal challenges. The main business applications driving ICT development are believed to be web-based services, while the strength of European technology is seen in embedded systems, the one of European industry in telecom equipment and services. Major weaknesses are seen in computing hardware, software products and consumer electronics. The consultation also confirms the lack of entrepreneurship and risk-taking in Europe.

The report can be downloaded here.

EIT publishes criteria for selection of Knowledge and Innovation Communities (KICs)

On 2 March 2009, the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT) published the criteria for the selection of Knowledge and Innovation Communities (KICs).

As excellence-driven partnerships between universities, research organisations, companies and other innovation stakeholders KICs shall bring together the three elements of the knowledge triangle: research, education and innovation.

Accordingly, the selection criteria established by the EIT include a business plan and a roadmap on how to put into practice the educational goals of the EIT.

The EIT intents to publish, in 2009, a call for proposals for Knowledge and Innovation Communities.The call will focus on three priority areas:
• climate change mitigation and adaptation;
• sustainable energy;
• future information and communication society.

More information can be found on the EIT site.

IPR guidelines - update available

An updated version of the IPR guidelines was made available on cordis.

Modifications are highlighted in blue and concern amongst others

- access rights in Marie Curie actions and certain space and environment related projects,
- possible objections by the EC,
- author rights and open access,
- the role of the IPR helpdesk project,
- coordination agreements with third country projects,
- a project's plan for use and dissemination.

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