Following the example set by Heidelberg Innovation Forum, the National Research Council Canada (NRC-IIT) organises the matchmaking event for the third time. This year they are working together with New Brunswick Information Technology Council (NBITC) and the Canadian Digital Media Network (CDMN).
The overarching theme of New Brunswick Innovation Forum 2010, taking place on 5th and 6th October 2010 in Saint John/Canada, is the Digital Economy. A selection committee will review the submissions and choose eight panelists in each of the following streams:
• Looking for technology transfer opportunities
• Offering collaboration opportunities
• Looking for funding
• International opportunities – this category is reserved for International researchers and companies that are offering business opportunities to Canadian companies.
MFG Baden-Württemberg is a partner of NRC-IIT and therefore happy to support you in taking part in New Brunswick Innovation Forum. If you’re interested in presenting your business idea and/or R&D results in front of Canadian investors, don’t hesitate to contact us!
Call for Proposal is open until 25th June 2010.
On the 9th September the Steibeins Europa Zentrum in collaboration with the MFG Baden Württemberg has run a workshop on the European Seventh Framework Programme (FP/7), with the aim of giving the applicants some useful tipps to present a successful project, being aware of possible tricks. More than 40 german future applicants had the chance to improve their knowledge on the programme and make questions to clear their doubts. Here a brief overview of what has been said.
FP/7 is the short name for the Seventh Framework Programme for Research and Technological Development, the EU’s main instrument for funding research in Europe. The broad objectives of FP7 have been grouped into four categories: Cooperation, Ideas, People and Capacities. For each type of objective, there is a specific programme corresponding to the main areas of EU research policy. All specific programmes work together to promote and encourage the creation of European poles of (scientific) excellence. The programme will run from 2007 till 2013 with a budget of 54.521 billion euro.
The complexity of the programme required a careful understanding of the requirements set up in the call. Take your time to read and understand all the documents and, in case you still have any doubts, there are a lot of european contact points who can help you to work on your proposal.
Heike Fischer from Steinbeis-Europa-Zentrum
First of all, who can participate to FP7?
Any company, university, research centre, organisation or individual from the EU-27 Member States may participate in a collaborative project. But also associated, candidate and third countries may take part to a project.
No one can present a project on his on: a fundamental prerequisite to take part to FP7 is to set up a consortium of at least 3 partner. In choosing partners it’s crucial to look for reliable organisations, which will for sure carry out the work assigned to them. For a successful project management a clear division of tasks among partners is vital. Look for partners with differente expertise, which can bring complementary knowledge and support in the project, adoiving – in the meantime – any form of internal competition. And remember that the transnational dimension of the project is a key factor for its success.
If you have never draw a proposal before, finding the right european partners could not be that easy. Fortunately, there are a lot of database that can help you in your search: in these database organisations looking for partnership can upload their profile by entering their project idea or specific expertise and, of course, can look for other partners reading all the profile divided by projects and countries.
Here are some useful links:
Cordis database
Enterprise Europe Network
Is your idea right for the FP7 and how can you develop it?
This is also an important questions that should be answered before drawing a proposal. Ideas should fit to the detailed request from the EU and should therefore proposed in the framework of the right programm. But good ideas are not enough. A good project should show a high profile project management that takes into consideration a solid risk management and a wide dissemination strategy. If you are not sure that your project has all these requisites you can ask for advise to the one of the many contact point and institutions that all over Europe help applicants to write proposals, check financial matters and evaluate the work done from a outsider’s point of view.
In Germany you can in any time contact the National Contact Point for any problems regarding European project. If you are in Baden-Württemberg you can directly ask the Steinbeins Europa Zentrum, your regional contact point.
Here you can find all the slide and the information provided during the workshop:
Steinbeis-Europa-Zentrum
Grundprinzipien der Europäische Forschungsförderung
Der Weg zum Antragstellung und Aufbau eines Konsortiums
Aktuelle IKT Aufrufen in 7. Forschungsrahmenprogramm
Finanzielle Aspekte in einem FP7 Projekt
Christine Heinrich • 
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