In this issue

	Upcoming Events
	The second Virtual Brokerage Event will be held in June 2008
	Feedback from the SMEs go Health Information and Training Workshop in Berlin

Kick-off for the Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI)

3rd call is coming soon!

	Find Your FP7 Health Partners in Bulgaria, Romania, Croatia and Turkey!
	Flash-Info from the Commission
	New Commission Recommendation on the management of IP
	First-aid package available
	Personal contact with the coordinator can get you in!

Grab the hand offered to you by "SMEs go Health".

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

May 2008 7/5 : IMI-Workshop in Frankfurt (Germany) 18/5 : Sleeping Beauties Workshop(Germany)  June 2008 17/6: Medtech Forum (Portugal) 17/6 : SMEs go Health European Partnering Day on Health & Biotechnology in FP7 (Poland) 20/6 : SMEs go Health European Partnering Day on Health & Biotechnology in FP7 (United Kingdom) 26/6 : 8th FEBS Young Scientist Forum - YSF2008 "Cell Harmony" (Greece)  August 2008 14/8 : Health Care & Social System, Summer School (Austria)  September 2008 3/9 : Baltic Dynamics 2008 (Estonia) 17/9 : EuroBioForum 2008 (France)  October 2008 7/10 : EuroBiO 2008 (France)

The second Virtual Brokerage Event will be held in June 2008

In June 2007 the SMEs go Health (SGH) team has conducted its first Virtual Brokerage Event addressing the Health theme of FP7. Based on the profiles published in the SGH database online, groups of interests were created by gathering potential partners (SMEs, R&D Centres, Universities…) active in the same fields of interest and having selected corresponding topics of the second FP7 Health Call for Proposals.

SGH experts individually contacted potential partners of each group in order to stimulate new project ideas and new consortia. With the publication of the 3rd Health Call for Proposals being expected by the end of July, a second Virtual Brokerage Event will be organised during the second week of June 2008. To participate in this event, all you need is to update your profile on our database or to publish a Partner search on www.smesgohealth.org. We invite you to indicate your objectives, your main research areas and keywords describing your fields of interest and to specify maximum 5 topics in which you might want to participate.

The actual topics will not be known until the 3rd Call itself is published, but a draft list of these topics will be available before the Virtual Brokerage Event takes place. These draft topics are currently under consideration by EC services - DG Research, prior to inter-service consultation and final consultation by Member States.

Feedback from the SMEs go Health Information and Training Workshop in Berlin

Our invitation to participate in the SMEs go Health Information and Training Workshop let to an impressive resonance in the scene: the workshop which was held in Berlin on Monday 10 March 2008 was fully booked shortly after its announcement. Though travelling to and within Berlin that day was quite difficult due to a general public transport strike, more than 100 persons made their way to the SMEs go Health workshop at the Estrel Convention Center, at the occasion of the World Health Care Congress. Not only European but also international representatives of academia, SMEs and other institutions participated, ranging from "FP7 newcomers" to experienced proposal writers.

Their efforts have been rewarded with an excellent one-day’s programme fully packed of information and first-hand-tips of experts from all over Europe. Certainly noteworthy is that, among other very interesting speakers, Mrs Ludovica Serafini, scientific officer at the European Commission, supported the event with two very informative and comprehensive presentations. Organisers, speakers and participants likewise were very satisfied with the workshop. For all those who could not participate or would like to be informed about the event, the programme and presentations in pdf format are available for download on the project’s website.

OPEN CALLS & PARTNER SEARCHES

Kick-off for the Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI): Governing Board, First IMI Call and Information Day

On March 3rd 2008, the decision-making body of the Innovative Medicines Initiative Joint Undertaking (IMI JU), the Governing Board, held its first meeting in Brussels.
The Governing Board is composed by 5 representatives each of the European Commission and the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations (EFPIA). Jonathan Knowles (EFPIA) was elected Chair of the Governing Board, whereas Alain Vanvossel from the European Commission was appointed Interim Executive Director of the IMI JU. The unique cooperation between the European Commission and EFPIA within the Innovative Medicines Initiative aims to overcome European bottlenecks in the develop-ment of new medicines and therapies, thereby strengthening the competitiveness of the European Pharmaceutical Industries. IMI will mobilise 2 billion € in research funds, with  € 1 billion stemming from the  7th EU Framework Programme (FP7, Theme "Health") and € 1 billion being contributed in-kind from the EFPIA member companies.

The first IMI Call with a budget of around € 250 million is expected to be published at the end of April 2008. On April 30th 2008, an information event has been held in Brussels, providing details on the IMI scientific priorities and application procedures, as well as networking opportunities for potential IMI stakeholders, particularly the public sector, the European pharmaceutical industry, biopharmaceutical SMEs and patient groups. Further information on the IMI scientific priorities and application procedures will be available on the IMI website www.imi.europa.eu.

3rd call is coming soon…be ready to update your profile or enter a new Partner Search!

The 3rd FP7 call in Health will probably be launched in July 2008. Your national SMEs go Health contact person will inform you about the topics as soon as they will be publicly available. If you intend to participate in a call, we invite you to enter your profile in the SGH database at www.smesgohealth.org/common/Participate.asp or to update it if you already have published one. Be prepared so that it can be matched with a partner search looking for your expertise as soon as possible!

TIPS & TRICKS TO TAKE PART IN FP7

Find Your FP7 Health Partners in Bulgaria, Romania, Croatia or Turkey!

Bulgaria and Romania joined the European Union as New Member States in 2007. Croatia and Turkey are still candidate countries but are full members of FP7 and can be funded the same as any other European participants. The enlargement of the European Union improves the opportunity for building the best partnerships to achieve the ambitious objectives of an FP7 collaborative project.

To help you getting to know better the expertise and know-how of health actors
in those countries, the SMEs go Health team has developed a specific booklet.
This booklet is complementary to the database where profiles are regularly
updated, and can be downloaded at www.smesgohealth.org.

Flash-Info from the Commission

Please be aware that the two documents: "Guidance notes on project reporting" and "Guidance notes and templates for Project Technical Review involving Independent Expert(s)" were published on CORDIS ("FP7 - Find a document") mid-March.

The weblinks are http://cordis.europa.eu/fp7/find-doc_en.html or specifically
ftp://ftp.cordis.europa.eu/pub/fp7/docs/project_reporting_en.pdf and
ftp://ftp.cordis.europa.eu/pub/fp7/docs/project_review_en.pdf.

New Commission Recommendation on the management of IP

On 10 April 2008, the European Commission adopted a new Recommendation on the management of intellectual property (IP) in the knowledge transfer activities of universities and other public research organisations.

The specific objectives of the Recommendation are to assist Member States in the development of policies and guidelines in the area of intellectual property management and knowledge transfer activities and to promote the exploitation of publicly-funded research results. In many cases this will entail public research organisations and private enterprise working more closely together, for example in academia-industry collaborations. Read the full article

The SMEs go Health team developed 4 small leaflets presenting concise information on the most important issues regarding FP7.
They do not substitute EC official documents, but offer a first approach to the basics of FP7. The four documents cover the
whole process of proposal writing and are entitled:

   1. FP7 in General, Consortium Building and Partner Search
   2. Optimal Proposal Preparation and Involvement of SMEs
   3. Financial guidelines
   4. Intellectual Property Rights and Consortium Agreement

Download a PDF version via the SMEs go Health homepage.

Personal contact with the coordinator can get you in!

An Israeli SME was interested in joining a consortium that was being organised in response to one of the recent Calls. The coordinator of the consortium did not want to include any additional partner since all the tasks of the project were already divided between the current partners. The company did not give up and offered to join the consortium without any request for budget from the project.  To that offer the coordinator did not refuse and accepted the SME as stakeholder, and at least all their travelling expenses will be paid by the project.

Grab the hand offered to you by "SMEs go Health"

During the initiation and preparation of two Health proposals for the second call, the team of the Israeli NCP and “SMEs go Health” partner ISERD was extremely helpful in advising on the alignment of the project outlines and the call for proposals; in providing feedback on candidate partners and in aiding in the search for additional partners, including SMEs; in inquiring issues at stake with the Commission and in critical reading of the proposals.

Rachel Kreisberg-Zakarin, "IBEX" ( Israël)

The "SMEs go Health" site information is really helpful for all the persons willing to participate in FP7 programmes. I have participated in the training organized by “SMEs go Health” and now we are in the phase of forming a team capable of building fruitful partnerships with other countries. It is a long and rather difficult process and we thank you for your support.

SC PREGNACIN LTD (Romania)

The ambitious integrated project objectives require the implementation of a joint program of activities, including exchange of personnel and services between research teams in order to provide a viable basis for focused research collaboration. In order
to elaborate new clinical approaches, an additional SME has been recruited by the project last year after an international competitive call. The network SMEs go Life Sciences (now SMEs go Health) including National Contact Points helped us matching our needs and addressing the European biopharmaceutical SMEs to find the right partner. Read the full article

Prof. Vincent Geenen - EUROTHYMAIDE (Univertity of Liège) Belgium

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