Newsletters   Subscription   Contributions       Newsletter issue n° 18 - December 09

The full version of this Newsletter is now downloadable from the http://circa.europa.eu/Public/irc/rtd/eesdwatkeact/info/data/etr_index.htm website. 

FP6 FIREPARADOX (018505): Fire is a bad master, but a good servant!

Fire long has been an important subject of debate, stemming from the apparent contradiction between its controlled use in everyday life and its threats to life and property as uncontrolled wildfires. This paradox has been phrased very well as, "Fire is a bad master but a good servant." This dichotomy is a key issue for the EU funded FP6 project known as FIREPARADOX. These two visions of fire have grown increasingly far apart, partly due to the increased distance between traditional rural societies, which commonly used fire as a "good servant," and modern urban societies that know fire mostly from the news, where the dominant image of fire as a "bad master" is reported from catastrophic events. These contradictory views are reflected in all aspects of society, shaping the laws, regulations and social acceptability of various practices, such as in smoke management. Lessons learned regarding the use of fire — including interviews, images, and reports on both failures and successes — are being compiled within the project as important resource materials for future academic and professional training. Although the project partners are primarily from European countries, there also are participants from Morocco, Tunisia, South Africa, Mongolia, Russia and Argentina...

FP7-ENV-2010 Environment (including climate change) Call

Call Reference: OJ C177 of 30 July 2009;        Deadline: 05 January 2010 at 17:00:00 (Brussels local time); The call allocates €175 000 000 million for research topics (49 topics) in all the four activities of the Theme at Activity 6.1: Climate change, pollution and risks; Activity 6.2: Sustainable management of resources; Activity 6.3: Environmental technologies; Activity 6.4: Earth observation and assessment tools for sustainable development. Among those topics are actions to promote industrial and SME participation, specific actions to reinforce international cooperation (international cooperation is supported and encouraged throughout all areas), dissemination actions to strengthen the visibility, effectiveness and uptake of EU research results, and Era-Nets in the field of 'Biodiversity',  'Eco innovation' and 'Water management'...

FP7-Africa-2010 Africa Call

Call Reference: OJ C177 of 30 July 2009;        Deadline: 14 January 2010 at 17:00:00 (Brussels local time);        Budget: € 63 000 000

The Africa call represents a great opportunity for strengthening Africa's research capacity to cope with water, food security and health problems. The call is structured around two major issues: Water and Food Security, and, Better Health for Africa. It has a multi-disciplinary approach involving various scientific and technological research fields, such as food, agriculture, health, land and water resources, including their interaction with climate change, and integrating broader socio-economic factors, such as, migration and resettlements, urbanisation, health care systems and programme interventions, destabilisation of national food reserves, variations of food and oil prices, etc...

Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST) Call for Proposals to fund Researchers in Japan participating in EU Research Consortia

JST has launched a call for proposals for researchers in Japan involved in EU research consortia under 11 topics under “Environment (including Climate Change)", "Biotechnologies, Food and Agriculture", and "Industrial Technologies"  of the FP7. Researchers in Japan who apply to the EC call for proposals should also apply to the JST call for proposal and submit their own research plan to possibly receive JST funding following JST peer-review evaluation. It should be noted that researchers in Japan involved in consortia selected by the EC will not necessarily be supported by JST, as this depends on outcome of JST evaluation. There are 11 FP7 research topics concerned by the JST call for proposals...

2982nd Council meeting: Competitiveness (Internal Market, Industry and Research). Brussels, 3-4 December 2009

The Competiveness Council held two days of intensive discussions, in various formations, addressing research, consumer, industrial policy and internal market issues. In the research related fields it was a breakthrough decision on the very sensitive EU patent file, the Council unanimously adopted conclusions on an enhanced patent system in Europe and a general approach on the EU patent regulation. The Council also held a policy debate and adopted Council conclusions on the future priorities for European research and research based innovation in post-2010 Lisbon. Many delegations stressed that indicators should be developed to measure the progress achieved in the implementation of the strategy. There was a general consensus on the need to promote better interaction between research, innovation and education...

A promising theme for the Joint Programming Initiative: Cultural heritage, climate change and security

Under the Swedish presidency, the High Level Group for Joint Programming (GPC) has identified three proposals of Joint Programming Initiatives (JPI) to be recommended to the Competitiveness Council of 3/4 December, one of which - led by Italy - is on the subject of research for the protection and conservation of Cultural Heritage. A JPI on Cultural Heritage should help strengthening the synergies between European and National funding mechanisms and reinforce all political and scientific efforts at European, national and regional level. It is expected to ensure more efficiency through more continuous and coordinated support. The Council of 3/4 December has welcomed progress made in the GPC...

Commission launches consultation on EU 2020: a new strategy to make the EU a smarter, greener social market

The Commission issued a public consultation document on giving the EU economy a brighter future through the EU 2020 Strategy. EU 2020 aims to deliver greener and socially inclusive growth, as outlined by President Barroso in his Political Guidelines. The new Strategy will build on the achievements of the Lisbon Strategy, while learning its lessons. The consultation paper sets out a vision for how EU 2020 will focus on entrenching recovery from the crisis, helping to prevent a similar one in future and on three thematic objectives: creating value through knowledge; empowering people in inclusive societies; and creating a competitive, connected and greener economy. The deadline for responses to the consultation is 15 January 2010...

Corporate R&D investment in 2008: a global increase with EU companies leading US and Japan

Worldwide corporate R&D investment increased by 6.9% in 2008, in spite of the economic crisis, according to the 2009 "EU Industrial R&D Investment Scoreboard" published in mid-November.  With an 8.1% increase, the R&D investment growth of EU companies is significantly higher than US ones for the second year, at 5.7%, and Japanese ones, at 4.4%. EU companies managed to maintain their R&D investment growth barely unchanged at 8.1% from 8.8% in 2007, whereas that of US companies fell from 8.6% in 2007 to 5.7% in 2008. Companies based in emerging economies continued to show the highest R&D growth...

Conference & Parliamentarian Evening: Accelerating Eco-innovation through Environmental Technology Verification, 12th – 13th October 2009, Brussels

Accelerating eco-innovation is an important aim of Environmental Technologies Action Plan (ETAP) for the environment, the European economy and Europe in a global market. Proving that new technologies are working through Environmental Technology Verification (ETV) is one way to achieve the goal. Therefore, the European Commission intends the implementation of a EU ETV system. ETV is an independent assessment of the performance of a specific environmental product or technology and provides quantitative information on the performance of innovative technologies. In projects all over Europe, first experiences with ETV in pilot technology sectors such as air pollution abatement, water monitoring and treatment...

ETP 2009: The 2nd Conference of the European Technology Platforms. Centre Albert Borschette, Brussels, 13 October 2009

With the support of the Swedish Presidency, the European Commission organised the 2nd Conference for European Technology Platforms (ETPs) in Centre Albert Borschette, Brussels on 13th October 2009. The Conference was chaired by Ms. Anneli Pauli, Deputy Director-General of DG Research of the European Commission. The plenary session was opened by Mr. Janez Potočnik, European Commissioner for Science & Research and Mr. Peter Honeth, State Secretary of the Swedish Ministry of Education & Research. During the debate it was emphasized that ETPs fulfil a crucial role in...

Workshop - Strengthening the role of R&D in boosting eco-innovation and eco-efficiency. Covent Garden, Brussels, 13 November 2009

The workshop "Strengthening the role of R&D in boosting eco-innovation and eco-efficiency" has been organised by Unit I.3: Environmental Technologies and Pollution Prevention of DG Research. Fourteen distinguished speakers from different research institutes, companies, academia and European institutions animated the debates of the two sessions and about 80 invited participants took part to this event. The workshop was opened by Ms. Manuela Soares, Director of the Environment Directorate of DG Research, who presented the ongoing activities in the Directorate in the field of eco-innovation and eco-efficiency as well as the vision and the future challenges and opportunities for research in this area. The first session of the workshop focused on research priorities for eco-innovation...  

Focus Area Cultural Heritage (FACH) event as a part of the 4th Conference of the European Construction Technology Platform (ECTP). Hotel Plaza, Brussels, 24 November 2009

The FACH event was well attended by 33 participants. The presentations covered basic information about the Focus Area Cultural Heritage (Isabel Rz-Maribona), about a new project idea (Ioanna Papayianni), about five ongoing new FP7 projects related to the cultural heritage (Mikel Sorli, Jürgen Frick, Adriana Bernardi, Johanna Leissner, Roko Žarnic) and about the ideas for the next FP7 work programs related to cultural heritage research (Michel Chapuis).  Further cooperation was requested between ongoing projects in a kind of clustering that can gain an added value to the project outcomes. The idea will be implemented during the progress of projects starting within the next EU CHIC workshop in April 2010 in Vienna where three projects will start clustering (SMooHS, Climate for Culture and EU CHIC)...

The 1st Workshop of the WSSTP Task-Force on ‘Water & Energy’ at the WSSTP premises in Brussels, Belgium, 5th January 2010

The main objectives of WSSTP Task-Force on “Water & Energy” are: (i) to carry out State-of-the-Art of current R&D projects; (ii) to identify gaps, opportunities and R&D needs; (iii) to develop roadmap with R&D recommendations to EC (by July 2010); and (iv) to prepare a report with State-of-the-Art and recommendations (by December 2010). The objectives of the Workshop are to review range of topics...

Final Workshop of the FP6 ORFEUS (036856): Optimised Radar to Find Every buried Utility in the street. New developments in surveying buried plant using advanced Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR). Ordnance Survey Business Centre, Southampton, United Kingdom, 24th February 2010

ORFEUS is a Europe-wide project of nine organisations consisting of equipment developers, GPR consultants, user organisations and academic institutions that has developed two new radar systems, one to look ahead and sideways from the drill tip of a Horizontal directional Drill, and the other, to advance significantly the performance of downward looking radar. These have now been tested and the performance sets expectations as to what is possible in the future. The 24th February 2010 is the ORFEUS research project final public presentation, and will cover the original aims and the significant technical achievements of the project...

Final Conference of the FP6 FIREPARADOX (018505) Integrated Project: New approaches in integrated fire management in Europe. Freiburg, Germany, 25 – 26 February 2010

The conference will be co-organized by the partners of the FIREPARADOX project, and will be hosted jointly by the Global Fire Monitoring Centre (GFMC) and the Central European Regional Office (EFICENT) of the European Forest Institute (EFI). The conference language will be English, only. The aim of the conference is to introduce new views on the use of fire, thus stimulating new strategies and policy actions towards integrated fire management at regional, national and European levels. This conference is targeted for European and national policy makers and representatives of forest and fire related organizations. The main outcomes of the project... 

The 3rd Stakeholder Workshop of the FP6 OSIRIS (037017): Optimised Strategies for Risk Assessment of Industrial Chemicals through Integration of Non-Test and Test Information. 1-2 March 2010

The new regulation concerning the registration, evaluation, authorisation and restriction of chemicals (REACH) requires demonstration of the safe manufacture of chemicals and their safe use throughout the supply chain. The goal of the project OSIRIS (Optimised Strategies for Risk Assessment of Industrial Chemicals through Integration of Non-Test and Test Information) is to develop integrated testing strategies (ITS) fit for REACH that enable to significantly increase the use of non-testing information for regulatory decision making, and thus to minimise the need for animal testing...

IWA Conference on Sustainable Solutions for Small Water and Wastewater Treatment Systems (S2Small2010). Girona, Catalonia, Spain, 19-22 April 2010.

The S2Small2010 Conference will be organised under the auspices of IWA Specialist Groups Small Water and Wastewater Systems (Small) and Resources-Oriented Sanitation (EcoSan). The Small Systems Conference was held in Exeter (UK, 2000), then in Istanbul (Turkey, 2002), followed by Perth (Australia, 2004), Mexico DF (Mexico, 2006) and Coimbatore (India, 2008). Now the international IWA SG conference on Small Systems comes back to Europe as a joint conference with the IWA SG on Resources-Oriented Sanitation (EcoSan). Thus, the Girona conference is being presented as a joint conference of the 9th IWA Specialised Group conference on “Small Water and Wastewater Systems” and the 2nd IWA Specialised Group conference on “Resources-Oriented Sanitation” (EcoSan). The main objective of the conference is...

5th Commission Summary on the Implementation of the Urban Waste Water Treatment Directive. SEC(2009) 1114 final, Brussels, 3rd August 2009

The population of the European Union is nearly 500 million and the waste water generated by people and industry is a major source of pollution of European waters. Waste water discharges can lead to over-fertilisation and speedup biodiversity loss; can affect drinking water supplies and thereby have important links to public health concerns. The Urban Waste Water Treatment Directive addresses these challenges by requiring the collection and treatment of waste water in all settlement areas and areas of economic activity (‘agglomerations’) with a population of more than 2000. The implementation of this Directive...

Sustainable Water for the Future by Isabel C Escobar and Andrea Schaefer. Water Recycling versus Desalination. IWA Publishing & Elsevier. ISBN: 9781843393405, pp 332

This book is part of a series on sustainability. Specifically, it deals with the issue of sustainable water use. Fresh sources of potable water are being depleted across the world. Pure water is the goal of water utilities as well as several industries. Well past the experimental stage, membrane processes are now a proven and reliable method of providing high-quality, cost-effective water. Membrane technologies have immediate applications to treatment of fresh, brackish and sea waters, as well as wastewater reclamation. With innovative module design and engineering, micro- and ultra-filtrations have become effective and economical for drinking water production, particularly for removal of microorganisms...

Waterborne Pathogens: Review for the Drinking Water Industry by Emmanuelle Guillot and Jean-Francois Loret (GWRC Report Series) ISBN: 9781843391791, pp194

Infectious diseases caused by pathogenic bacteria, viruses and protozoa, are the most common and widespread health risk associated with drinking water. Most waterborne pathogens are introduced into drinking water supplies by human or animal faeces (enteric pathogens) but they can also exist naturally in water environments as indigenous aquatic micro-organisms. Controlling the risks related to these pathogens is a permanent challenge for the water industry. In addition to the constantly evolving range of pathogens to consider, assessing and managing such risks requires the integration of information issued by a wide range of disciplines. The necessary knowledge is however still sketchy and incomplete for most pathogens, and research efforts are necessary to...

Amendments Guide for FP7 Grant Agreements. Version 5/05/2008

In spite of the careful negotiations and appropriate preparations of the grant agreements (GA) the real life insists necessary modifications of the agreements since more and more FP7 research projects have started their research activities. As a general rule, an amendment is necessary whenever the grant agreement has to be modified. This is typically the case for any change of the data included in the core part of the GA and for changes of Annex I. In some cases, the GA explicitly states that a written amendment is needed. An amendment to a GA is a legal act modifying the commitments initially accepted by the parties and...

FP6 INNOWATECH (036882): Advanced and innovative approaches for treating industrial wastewater

The FP6 European project INNOWATECH started its activities in November 2006 and will be over next March 2010. Its main goal is investigating and enhancing the performances of innovative industrial wastewater treatments based on aerobic biomass granulation, advanced oxidation processes combined with biological treatments, membrane contactors and membrane chemical reactors. Food industry WW, landfill leachates, pharmaceutical WW, pesticides WW, slaughterhouse WW and chemical industry WW have been the streams treated. Among the several results achieved during the project, it has proved that plants based on aerobic biomass granules enable...

FP6 OSIRIS (037017): Optimised Strategies for Risk Assessment of Industrial Chemicals through Integration of Non-Test and Test Information

OSIRIS aims to develop integrated testing strategies (ITS) for risk assessment of chemicals, considering different information sources, and thus to increase the use of non-testing information for regulatory decision making and to minimise the need for animal testing. ITS shifts risk assessment from a “box-ticking” approach with extensive animal testing to a more efficient, context-specific and substance-tailored approach. The OSIRIS ITS training courses for professional end-users address key staff in industry and regulatory agencies involved in the submission and review of chemical risk assessments and aim to introduce the main concepts underlying the design of ITS for the regulatory purposes of REACH and to provide some practical experience...

FP6 CALCAS (037075): Co-ordination Action in Life Cycle Analysis for Sustainability

On August 31^st 2009 the CALCAS project closed, delivering its final results to the European Commission for the final approval. Started in 2006, the project was aimed to structure the array of LCA approaches that have emerged during the last two decades, and to indicate how the analysis might be improved, by formulating research lines and road maps for sustainability decision support. Indeed, besides LCA as defined in the ISO-14040 series, various other LCA approaches have emerged taking into account more types of externalities (economic and social costs) and more mechanisms (rebound, behaviour, price effects), handling of time ((quasi-)dynamic, steady state), handling of space (spatially differentiated or spatially independent) and/or meeting specific user needs such as in simplified LCA. CALCAS thus pointed out the need of...

FP6 SOCOPSE (037038): Source control of priority substances in Europe. Priority Substances in The Water Framework Directive - Legislation in need of Support for Implementation

The main objective of the SOCOPSE project is to provide support for the implementation of the WFD with regards to Priority Substances (PS). The project is focussed on the development of a common approach and a Decision Support System (DSS), with associated databases and compiled information, to support the implementation of the WFD. The DSS and the associated guidelines have been tested and evaluated in five case studies in different regions of Europe. The DSS is a step by step decision support plan leading to the selection of the best control options. To provide information on sources of the priority substances, a Material Flow Analysis approach has been used to describe sources, fluxes and environmental end points for priority substances in Europe...

FP6 NEPTUNE (036845): New Sustainable Concepts and Processes for Optimization and Upgrading Municipal Wastewater and Sludge Treatment (www.eu-neptune.org) Full scale ozonation of municipal secondary wastewater effluent for eliminating micro-pollutants

A full scale ozone reactor was installed at wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) Regensdorf (Switzerland) to treat the secondary effluent. A rapid sand filter acted as biological polishing step after ozonation. In nine sampling campaigns, different ozone doses were added to the wastewater stream. During each campaign, 24 h or 48 h flow proportional composite samples were taken in the effluent of the primary and secondary clarifier, after ozonation and in the final effluent after sand filtration. More than 50 persistent pharmaceuticals and biocides with different second-order rate constants for the reaction with ozone were selected as suitable indicators for the evaluation of the elimination efficiency by ozone. The results show that...

FP7 BACSIN (211684): Bacterial Abiotic Stress and Survival Network

The sixteen-partner BACSIN project was launched in June 2008 in the Area of Environmental Biotechnology with the main aim to improve rational control of bacteria as catalysts in pollutant degradation. One of the first project objectives is to better understand the relation between stress response experienced by pollutant degrading bacteria being re-introduced into the environment, and their metabolic activity. The second main objective for the first year was to improve field diagnostics possibilities for screening the presence of appropriate catalytic bacteria to carry out the desired degradation process. BACSIN accomplished several important points to address these objectives, such as genome-wide transcription studies under drought stress on a number of ‘bacsin’ strains degrading key pollutants, survival studies in soil, on plant roots and leaves, and...

FP7 EnviroGenomarkers (226756): New generation of biomarkers to study environmental agents in human disease

The EnviroGenomarkers project aims at the development and application of a new generation of biomarkers, based on "omics" technologies, to study the environmental aetiology of human disease. Theses technologies are used in a relatively large population study, and aim at the: (i) discovery and validation of novel biomarkers predictive of increased risks of chronic diseases in which the environment may play an important role (breast cancer, Non Hodgkin’s lymphoma, childhood diseases including allergy, neurological and immune diseases, thyroid disruption), (ii) exploration of the association of such risk biomarkers with exposure to a number of high-priority or emerging environmental pollutants with carcinogenic, immuno-toxic or hormone-like properties, including polychlorinated biphenyls (PBCs), polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), cadmium, lead, phthalates, brominated flame retardants (polybrominated biphenyls), ambient air pollutants and water treatment byproducts, and (iii) discovery and validation of biomarkers of exposure to the above environmental pollutants...

FP7 ChemScreen (244236): CHEMICAL SUBSTANCE IN VITRO/IN SILICO SCREENING SYSTEM TO PREDICT HUMAN- AND ECO-TOXICOLOGICAL EFFECTS

The current system of risk assessment of chemicals is complex, very resource-intensive and extremely time-consuming. Because of this, there is a great need to modernize this process. However, this is not feasible without alternative, integrated testing strategies in which chemical characteristics are used to more advantage and where costly and time consuming animal tests are replaced to a large extent by more rapid, cheap and ethically less controversial methods. This is particularly needed for reproductive toxicity testing of chemical. Reproductive toxicity is important to assess both human and environmental toxicity and uses the most animals in toxicity testing. Unfortunately, there are very few alternative methods. We aim to fill this gap and place the tests in a more general innovative animal free testing strategy. For this, we will generate a simple rapid screening system, which aims...

FP7 NANOSUSTAIN (247989): Development of sustainable solutions for nanotechnology-based products based on hazard characterization and LCA

The primary goal of the project is to develop new technical solutions for the sustainable design and use, for recycling and final treatment of selected nanotechnology-based products. Specific objectives are: (i) to assess the hazard of selected nanomaterials based on a comprehensive data survey on their properties (physico-chemical characteristics, exposure probabilities, etc.) and the adaptation, evaluation, validation and use of existing analytical, testing and LCA methods; (ii) to assess selected products using LCA (in relation to material and energy flows); (iii) to assess the impact of these materials in relation to toxicology, ecotoxicology, exposure, environmental and biological fate, transport, transformation, and destiny; and (iv) to explore the feasibility and sustainability of new technical solutions for end-of-life processes, such as reuse/recycling, final treatment or disposal...

FP7 FIRESENSE (244088): Fire Detection and Management through a Multi-Sensor Network for the Protection of Cultural Heritage Areas from the Risk of Fire and Extreme Weather Conditions

The proposed project aims to develop an automatic early warning system to remotely monitor areas of archaeological and cultural interest from the risk of fire and extreme weather conditions. Since these areas have been treasured and tended for very long periods of time, they are usually surrounded by old and valuable vegetation or situated close to forest regions, which exposes them to an increased risk of fire. Additionally, extreme weather conditions (such as storms and floods) pose great risks for these sites. The proposed system will take advantage of recent advances in multi-sensor surveillance technologies, using a wireless sensor network capable of monitoring different modalities (e.g. temperature) andoptical and infrared cameras, as well as local weather stations on the deployment site. The signals collected from these sensors will be transmitted to...

FP7 LC-IMPACT (243827): Development and application of environmental Life Cycle Impact assessment Methods for imProved sustAinability Characterisation of Technologies

LC-IMPACT is a 3-year project and its main objective is the development and application of life cycle impact assessment methods, characterisation and normalisation factors. Impact from land use, water use, marine, mineral and fossil resource use, eco-toxicity and human toxicity, and a number of non-toxic emission-related impact categories will be considered in LC-IMPACT. First, new impact assessment methods will be developed for categories that are not (commonly) included in life cycle impact assessments and categories for which model uncertainties are very high, i.e. land use, water exploitation, resource use, and noise. Second, LC-IMPACT will provide spatially explicit characterisation factors based on global scale models for land use, water exploitation, toxicants, priority air pollutants, and nutrients. Thirdly, parameter uncertainty and value choices will be assessed for...