The “Eurostars” and “Ambient Assisted Living" joint research initiatives got the approval of the Council of Ministers on 23 and 24 June.

In AAL, 20 EU Member States as well as Israel, Norway and Switzerland will participate. This new joint research initiative is considered as a mean to respond to the growing demographic challenge and to facilitate the life of elder people. As elder people are important consumers, products and technologies targeting this group could also be of benefit for Europe’s ICT industry. The European Commission sees Europe even in the position of becoming a lead market for “ageing well” technologies. The six year AAL-programme is expected to amount to a total budget of €600 million: The first call for proposals will close on 21 August. Read more

EUREKA's Eurostars Programme is the first European funding and support programme to be specifically dedicated to SMEs. The Eurostars joint research programme brings together 26 EU Member States. plus Iceland, Israel, Norway, Switzerland and Turkey. Eurostars is a bottom up funding scheme, targeting close-to-the-market R&D of high tech SME’s in all industrial sectors. As AAL, Eurostars is a trans-national programme. At least two SME’s from two participating countries have to be involved in a project. Eurostars will last from 2008 to 2013 and foresees an overall budget of about €400 million. Research projects should not last longer than 3 years and results should be transformed into products within 2 years after the project has ended. The next application deadline is 21 November. Read more