Forum for Science, Industry and Business

Life Competence: the first global picture on the EU-funded health research

The data has been generated from an online webbased database of competences, supported through an EU specific support action.The project has been implemented by AVEDAS AG, Germany, Karolinska Institutet, Sweden and EuropaBio, Belgium.

It contains all the health related projects funded by the EU during the last Research Framework Programme, as well as the principal organisations participating in these projects. The aim of this database is to increase transparency and accessibility of research competences in Europe, both for Europeans (in a recent Eurobarometer, 70% of them expressed their interest in health research) but also for other nationalities interested in participating in the European Health Research effort.

In the European Research Programme going from 2001 to 2006 (FP6), the part of the programme focussing on health research was major with its budget of € 2.4 billion supporting 680 projects. It was shared between different research areas with about 50% of the projects and budget dedicated to disease oriented research areas. Cancer is the area receiving most support with 123 projects, about 18 % of projects partly or entirely focussed on cancer, with 22 % of the budget (€ 539 million). Other important research areas are AIDS/HIV, Stem Cell Research, Diabetes, Diagnostics, Vaccines and Drug design.

An important policy in the EU is to support competitiveness by encouraging cooperation of academia and clinicians with industry, and especially with small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Out of 2.438 unique partners in health research projects, 853 are from the private sector, of which 365 SMEs (15%). It means that around 20 % of the total number of SMEs in the Health sector are participating in the EU programme. The majority of partners in the programme are academic.

Another important policy in European research is international cooperation. Participation from countries outside Europe and its associated states represents about 5% of partners of health projects. The highest number of participations are from China, Russia, US and South Africa. Within Europe, about 6% of the partners are from the 12 new EU-member states and 7% of the partners are from the states associated to the EU with science and technology cooperation agreements that involved contributing to the framework programme budget.

It is expected that the 'LifeCompetence' database will have many positive implications for the Health research society in Europe and for worldwide cooperations, e.g. increased knowledge transfer, better partnerships and more efficient management of research programmes and research organisations, as well as providing a transparent information on the resources invested in funding health research at the European level.

Mr. Torbjoern Ingemansson | alfa
Further information:
http://www.lifecompetence.eu
http://cordis.europa.eu/lifescihealth/
http://cordis.europa.eu/fp7/health/

Im Focus: A quantum walk of photons

Physicists from the University of Würzburg are capable of generating identical looking single light particles at the push of a button. Two new studies now demonstrate the potential this method holds.

The quantum computer has fuelled the imagination of scientists for decades: It is based on fundamentally different phenomena than a conventional computer....

Im Focus: Turmoil in sluggish electrons’ existence

An international team of physicists has monitored the scattering behaviour of electrons in a non-conducting material in real-time. Their insights could be beneficial for radiotherapy.

We can refer to electrons in non-conducting materials as ‘sluggish’. Typically, they remain fixed in a location, deep inside an atomic composite. It is hence...

Im Focus: Wafer-thin Magnetic Materials Developed for Future Quantum Technologies

Two-dimensional magnetic structures are regarded as a promising material for new types of data storage, since the magnetic properties of individual molecular building blocks can be investigated and modified. For the first time, researchers have now produced a wafer-thin ferrimagnet, in which molecules with different magnetic centers arrange themselves on a gold surface to form a checkerboard pattern. Scientists at the Swiss Nanoscience Institute at the University of Basel and the Paul Scherrer Institute published their findings in the journal Nature Communications.

Ferrimagnets are composed of two centers which are magnetized at different strengths and point in opposing directions. Two-dimensional, quasi-flat ferrimagnets...

Im Focus: World's thinnest hologram paves path to new 3-D world

Nano-hologram paves way for integration of 3-D holography into everyday electronics

An Australian-Chinese research team has created the world's thinnest hologram, paving the way towards the integration of 3D holography into everyday...

Im Focus: Using graphene to create quantum bits

In the race to produce a quantum computer, a number of projects are seeking a way to create quantum bits -- or qubits -- that are stable, meaning they are not much affected by changes in their environment. This normally needs highly nonlinear non-dissipative elements capable of functioning at very low temperatures.

In pursuit of this goal, researchers at EPFL's Laboratory of Photonics and Quantum Measurements LPQM (STI/SB), have investigated a nonlinear graphene-based...