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In this
issue
Events
Open Calls
New profiles
Tips & tricks to take part in FP7
Success Stories
Project
coordinator is
FFG-Austrian Research Promotion Agency
European and International Programmes.
SMEs go Health is an SSA co-funded by the European Commission under FP6, grouping 29 expert organisations in Europe to support successful SMEs' participation in FP7.
www.smesgohealth.org |
UPCOMING EVENTS
A calendar of events is available on our website www.smesgohealth.org
- 15th October: 3rd International Symposium on Human Nutrition and
Metabolism in Austria.
 Read more
- 29th October: FP7 Health Brokerage Event in Egypt.
Read more
- 6th November: European BioAlpine Convention – "Inflammation and Autoimmunity" in Italy.
Read more
- 8th November: International Interdisciplinary Scientific Conference "Society.Health.Welfare" in Latvia.
Read more
- 3rd December: Congress of the Swiss Proteomics Society in Switzerland.
Read more
A successful VIRTUAL BROKERAGE EVENT has been organised by SMEs go Health partners between 25 and 29 June 2007
 This Virtual Brokerage Event (VBE) was designed to group research interests in the Health area at the European level and maximise the involvement of SMEs and academic organisations in research projects in the field of Health/Life Sciences of FP7.
To this end, the 29 partners of the "SMEs go Health" network have collected and selected technology profiles from researchers and Health companies in their own countries. These profiles were then matched with projects looking for additional partners (Partner Searches) according to topics open for submission in Call 2.
Experts from "SMEs go Health" supported their national candidates to match profiles and contact potential partners among more than 1.100 profiles covering 35 countries.
In particular, the network performed during one week - from 25 June to 29 June 2007 - an intensive “matching” process, and assisted one by one each company and academic researcher from the database to find relevant partners.
The "SMEs go Health" network was created in order to assist SMEs and academia in their European R&D strategy and successful participation in FP7 and the VIRTUAL BROKERAGE EVENT is an important mean to achieve that aim.
The deadline for Call 2 was 18 September 2007 but all profiles and partner searches are still accessible in the SGH database here.
"SMEs go Health" is rewarded as Partner of Health System
 SMEs go Health initiative received the Excellency Prize"Partner of Health System" at the Policies and Business Mechanisms in the CEE Healthcare Industries event held in September in Romania! The price was granted to the SMEs go Health project for perseverance and efficiency in supporting the researchers from the health domain to access European funding.
The prize was awarded by Ms Liliana Munteanu (on the left), the Vice-president of FORUMINVEST, handed over the diploma to Ms Flaviana Rotaru, Head of Funded Programs Department at FM Management Consultancy SRL, the Romanian partner of the "SMEs go Health" project.
OPEN CALLS & PARTNER SEARCHES
The third Call for Proposals of the HEALTH theme of FP7 is expected to be published in Spring 2008. Information about the work programme, the topics and the deadline will be published on our website (www.smesgohealth.org) as soon as publicly available.
In the meantime, make sure you have an updated profile in our database and feel
free to use our Matchmaking facilities in a proactive way.
NEW PROFILES
SMEs go Health offers an advanced Match Making service!
In order to better serve your needs and speed up the process of finding potential project partners or initiators that exactly fit similar objectives, SMEs go Health has developed a new automatic function that screens the database of partner searches and profiles on your behalf.
All you need to do is to register your own profile and indicate your "Call Topics" of interest. The system then generates a list of relevant partner searches (i.e. of projects looking for partners) that might interest you, or be interested by your profile. In case no specific "Call Topics" are selected at the creation of your profile, you can modify it later on, and a new list will then appear. Once the list is generated, you can mark which partners are of interest to you, and directly contact the relevant ones just by one mouse click! The system provides an automatic email with reference to your profile inviting the other party to view it and get in touch with you. The service also allows you to keep track of which organizations you have already contacted.
To access the Match Making service, we invite you to log in to the database here.
It is totally free! Finding and contacting relevant partners interested in joint research projects for FP7 Health thematic could not be any easier!
A successful online match-making contributed to SMEs participation in RDT projects submission in Call 2
From 15 June 2007 to 15 September 2007, SMEs go Health initiative collected 71 PARTNER SEARCHES and 322 new COMPANY RESEARCH PROFILES which generated 176 actual contacts and 70 initiatives of joint collaborations in project proposals for the second FP7 HEALTH Call for proposals.
SMEs go Health’ mission is to establish partnerships between companies, particularly Small and Medium sized Enterprises (SMEs) and academic institutions in order to prepare a joint research project by using the funding opportunities of FP7.
The collaboration was mainly addressing the second call topics of the Health theme.
1. BIOTECHNOLOGY, GENERIC TOOLS AND MEDICAL TECHNOLOGIES FOR HUMAN HEALTH -> 93 profiles and 20 partner searches
2. TRANSLATING RESEARCH FOR HUMAN HEALTH -> 112 profiles and 9 partner searches
3. OPTIMISING DELIVERY OF HEALTH CARE TO EUROPEAN CITIZENS -> 84 profiles and 8 partner searches
4. OTHER ACTIONS ACROSS THE HEALTH THEME -> 16 profiles and 1 partner search.
| Check your potential complementarities in collaborative research projects in the project database here. |
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TIPS & TRICKS TO TAKE PART IN FP7
How Ethical Review works in FP7
 Despite the recommendation from the Commission that, in FP7, every proposal should address ethical issues at the very submission (and not in a later stage like in FP6), a large number of proposals in the first and second Health calls did not include them. It is important to note that this is an eligibility criteria and that a proposal can be disregarded without further warning because the ethical issues are not included. If the scientific evaluators are concerned about the ethical aspects of a proposal, it may be submitted to an Ethical Review Panel. We strongly advice to include an Ethical Review in all proposals, even if it obviously raises no ethical problem.
In order to help you in that difficult matter, besides your always-available-SMEs go Health-expert and your National Contact Point, some important information are available online.
Research involving the use of human Embryonic Stem Cells
 The Commission clearly stated that "All proposals for funding involving the use of human Embryonic Stem Cells (hESC) and/or foetal issues will be automatically submitted to an ethical review panel".
At the evaluation step, once the scientific evaluators confirm the necessity of using hESC in the research proposal, the ethical review panel assesses:
- That the proposal does not include research activities which destroys embryos;
- Whether the consortium has taken into account the legislation, regulations, ethical rules and/or codes of conduct in place in the country(ies) where the research using hESC is to take place, including the procedures for obtaining informed consent;
- The source of the hESC;
- The measures taken to protect personal data, including genetic data, and privacy;
- The nature of financial inducements, if any.
Each research proposal involving the use of hESC, which is supported within FP7, is assessed by at least two independent ethical reviews: one in the country(ies) itself where the research will be carried out and one at the EU level.
Success stories / quotes from clients...
VALAPODYN: A project successfully re-submitted.
 Since it was founded, HELIOS Biosciences tried to get an overview of all existing R&D funding programmes and got involved in several European proposals.
The Valapodyn project was first submitted in November 2004.
"It was kind of a rush: a month before the deadline for submission, we barely had the consortium! But the project was already structured and we knew exactly the competencies we were looking for. We didn't have time to meet our partners but managed to build the proposal via emails and phone conferences" commented Dr Jean-Baptiste DUMAS, Manager and CEO form Helios Biosciences, France.
Unfortunately, Valapodyn was not selected by EC on this first attempt.
"When the next call was published, we were quite reluctant to resubmit. But we participated in September 2005 to a training session organised by OSEO innovation and SMEs go LifeSciences (the predecessor of SMEs go Health), where we got information on the LifeSciences&Health last call, and more specifically on its SME-targeting measures. An SME manager presented its own successful experience and cheered us up suggesting a resubmission, with an academic lab as a coordinator: that's what we did" Concluded Jean-Baptiste DUMAS.
After reshaping the project for it to fit the SMEs-STREP requirements, Valapodyn was submitted on November 2005 and selected for funding.
The project was ranked 4th out of the 15 selected and the overall remarks of the Commission were excellent!
Dr Jean-Baptiste DUMAS
Helios Biosciences, France
Newsletter
by EuroTop. |
Newsletter Volume 2, No 2 - October 2007
