The strategic objective from this call which is addressed by the present proposal is: “To stimulate, encourage and facilitate the participation of organisations from the New Member States (NMS) and the Associated Candidate Countries (ACC) in the activities of IST” .
Activities have a pan-European focus on thematic issues related to “Micro-nanosystems”, one of the IST strategic objectives, hence the title “ MIcro- Nan OSystems EUROpean NETworking for promoting/pursuing integration of NMS and ACC in ERA” and the acronym MINOS-EURONET.
This proposal is focussing on the following objectives:
- To reveal and promote the research competences from NMS and ACC, namely competences which are relevant for the development of the field of micro-nanosystems at the European scale.
- To facilitate the participation of NMS and ACC organisations to EU programmes and other activities in the field of micro-nanosystems: a) by providing specific information through databases and other electronic or conventional means and b) by direct contacts through information and awareness events, as well as through brokerage meetings.
- Extensive networking at the pan-European scale in the field of micro-nanosystems, especially by networking the organisations in NMS and ACC which have a potential for the future development of the field with the established networks in EU.
The measurable results related to first objective (promoting NMS and ACC competences) will be given by the number of NMS/ACC researchers and organisations registered in the MINOS data bases, as well as the number of projects, results, events etc. presented in a web-based magazine hosted by the MINOS web portal. Organisation of European scientific conferences in Eastern Europe, as well as of presentation events of Eastern organisations is also representing such a promotion. Please note the fact that in the present proposal the project and WP (work package) coordinators are from NMS/ACC.
To measure the output of actions related to the second objective, one has to quantify the exchange of information related to the participation to European programmes (and to other activities in the domain). This exchange will be done basically in two ways, through electronic means (using the so-called electronic communication platform, ECP) and by direct contacts. Electronic brokerage will be provided by special matching database. Entries in such database can be counted, but further interactions cannot be strictly monitored. Interactions during the information and awareness events, as well as during brokerage events can be, more or less, estimated. The most important output will be the number of NMS/ACC participations to common proposals, the number of proposals coordinated by NMS/ACC and, of course, the number of participations to financed projects (in EU projects, but not exclusively). The participants will be pursued to register their proposals and financed projects in the MINOS databases.
The third objective is networking at the European scale. In the context of this proposal, networking is again exchange of information, but the center of gravity is related to the development of new communication channels between organisations and between fields of activity. Essentially, MINOS – EURONET supports a network of networks. This comes from the fact that the project is making an inventory of networks and it is promoting the exchange of information between them. We already have the coordinators of a number of networks in the MINOS-EURONET consortium. The output will be given in the number of new networks and organisations “joining the club”, i.e. participating to the exchange of information through electronic and conventional means as promoted by MINOS – EURONET.
