Societal challenges
The conference aims to engage ETPs in working together on key areas of common interest that contribute to tackling societal challenges. The programme includes 16 parallel sessions that cover from decarbonising transport to healthy eating and addresses horizontal matters such as linkages with national research authorities and public private partnerships.

This two-day conference will bring together 350 representatives of industry, academia, civil society, EU member-states and Commission departments.

The European Commission will launch a public-private partnership on Future Internet, aimed at raising the efficiency of business processes and the activity of infrastructures and applications of important social value. The PPP addresses service architectures and platforms, encouraging cross-sector industrial partnerships, involving users and public authorities at all levels: local, regional and national.

The partnership will be launched in the context of the forthcoming Spanish EU Presidency high-level conference "The European RTD Framework Programmes: From Economic Recovery to Sustainability", taking place on April 13^th and 14^th 2010 in Valencia. It builds on the experience of the three PPPs launched in the Commission's recovery package: Factories of the Future, Energy-efficient Buildings and the European Green Car Initiative.

The French national optics and photonics committee (Comité national d’Optique et de Photonique) has just launched an initiative with the support of the French government to involve the French optics and photonics community at the European level. France is now on a clear path towards the creation of a French photonics technology platform in the near future.

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The European Technology Platforms on Sustainable Mineral Resources and Water Supply and Sanitation met on February 12th in Brussels, Belgium. Opportunities for cooperation have been found regarding water treatment process improvement, water recycling as well as the restoration of degraded zones (old mining sites). A framework for cooperation will be submitted to the boards of each platform before the end of March. A workshop between experts of the two platforms will be set up in April to discuss all the challenges and produce a roadmap for recommendations.

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Proposals are invited for metrology for industry and metrology for environment.

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Proposals can be submitted until April 27^th at 17h00 Brussels time.

On February 9^th Members of European Parliament approved 26 candidates for the European Commission, enabling President Barroso’s new team to get down to business. The new Commission was supposed to take office in November 2009 but the appointment was held up by delayed ratification of the Lisbon treaty and by the withdrawal of the Bulgarian candidate after her confirmation hearing in January. Rumiana Jeleva was replaced by World Bank vice-president Kristalina Georgieva, who sat for her hearing in parliament last week.

The European Commission has launched the Europe 2020 Strategy to overcome the crisis and prepare the European economy for the next decade. The Commission identifies three key drivers for growth: smart growth (fostering knowledge, innovation, education and digital society), sustainable growth (making our production more resource efficient while boosting our competitiveness) and inclusive growth (raising participation in the labour market, the acquisition of skills and the fight against poverty).
Five targets are set which define where the EU should be by 2020 and against which progress can be tracked. These targets refer to: employment levels, investment in R&D, energy policies, education and poverty.

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In response to its public consultation on community innovation policy, the European Commission has received 215 responses from universities, research institutions, companies, governments, non-governmental organisations and individuals from European Union and elsewhere. 27% of the responses were from companies or business associations.

TThe European Commission hosted the ICT4 EE 2010 event on February 23^th and 24^th The goal was to support the role of information and communication technologies in achieving an energy-efficient and low carbon economy. The event builds on a Commission Recommendation from October 2009 which calls on the ICT sector to agree on common methodologies for measuring energy consumption and carbon emissions by 2010.

The public will be able to discover astonishing satellite navigation applications which can, for example, guide a boat into harbour, monitor patients suffering from Alzheimer's, rescue people lost in the mountains or offer assisted steering to reduce fuel consumption and CO2 emissions. The event, which will take place from 3 to 5 March in Charlemagne and on the Berlaymont Esplanade, aims at presenting the results of research funded by the Framework Programme.

The contract for the system support services is awarded to ThalesAleniaSpace of Italy, the contract for a first order of 14 satellites to OHB System AG of Germany and the contract for the launch services to Arianespace of France. This will allow the initial deployment and service provision of Europe’s satellite navigation system as of early 2014. The remaining three procurement contracts, for the ground mission infrastructure, the ground control infrastructure and the operations should be awarded by mid-2010.

The European Commission has launched a one-stop helpdesk on funding possibilities for "motorways of the sea" projects. Although motorways of the sea is already supported by the TEN-T and Marco Polo programmes, it also benefits from other potential resources, such as the European Investment Bank, Structural Funds, the European Neighbourhood and Partnership Instrument, the Instrument for Pre-accession Assistance as well as national funding. Before today there was no single guiding source of information on these various programmes, making it difficult for operators who intend to launch a new project to combine funding from different sources.

The service provided at this stage will be web-based at www.mos-helpdesk.eu . Questions can be sent by e-mail to ec-mos-helpdesk@ec.europa.eu and users can expect a reply within a week.