Press Release: Boosting the participation of acceding and candidate countries in EU research

Philippe Busquin, European Commissioner for Research, met with representatives from the acceding and candidate countries on 28 November 2003 to discuss their participation in the EU's Sixth Framework Programme for research 2002-2006 (FP6) and, more specifically, their response to the first calls for proposals. Data available shows that the participation of acceding/candidate countries in FP6 could be improved. Out of more than 100,000 applications for participation in FP6, only 13,000 are from acceding/candidate countries - barely 12.7%. And only 1,500 organisations were eventually retained for funding, mostly in nanotechnology, information society, energy and transport projects.

http://www.cordis.lu/national_service/en/candidate_countries.htm http://www.cordis.lu/national_service/en/candidate_countries.htm

http://fp6.cordis.lu/fp6/calls_accssa.cfm http://fp6.cordis.lu/fp6/calls_accssa.cfm

http://fp6.cordis.lu/fp6/calls.cfm http://fp6.cordis.lu/fp6/calls.cfm

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