The Conference is organised by EARMA with the support of the Ministry of Innovation, Universities and Enterprise, Government of Catalonia and hosted by the University of Barcelona

Preliminary details of the programme for the 2008 Annual Conference can be found below. Please note that speakers are to be confirmed and exact timings are subject to change. The official language of the Conference will be English.

25th June 2008 (Wednesday)

Pre-Conference Event

Title:	The Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI): Perspectives from Academia, Industry, and the European Commission, and Implications for Research Managers
Speakers:	Dr. Ian Ragan, IMI Advisor to EFPIA, CIR Consultancy Ltd Dr Ferran Sanz, Vice-Rector for Research Policy of Universitat Pompeu Fabra Dr Philippe Cupers, DG Research, European Commission
Time:	10:45 – 16:00
Venue:	University of Barcelona
Cost:	€65

Further details:

170. Workshop on Enabling Technologies, Rome, Italy      [Event date: 2008-06-23]     Abstract: The 17th IEEE International Workshop on Enabling Technologies: Infrastructures for Collaborative Enterprises (WETICE) will be held in Rome, Italy, from 23 to 25 June.

WETICE is an annual international forum for state-of-the-art research in enabling technologies for collaboration, consisting of a number of cognate workshops. Organisers try to keep the workshops small enough to promote fruitful discussions on the latest technology developments, directions, problems and requirements.

Each workshop includes paper presentations, workgroup discussions, keynote sessions and a final joint session to summarise each group's findings. This year, the following topics will be covered:
- Agent-based Computing for Enterprise Collaboration (ACEC);
- Distributed and Mobile Collaboration (DMC);
- Emerging Technologies for Next Generation GRID (ETNGRID);
- Collaborative Peer-to-Peer Systems (COPS);
- Agile Cooperative Process-Aware Information Systems (ProGility);
- Coordination Models and Applications: Knowledge in Pervasive Environments (CoMA)
- Security Technologies for Collaborative Architectures (ST);
- Evolution of Collaborative Enterprises (ECE).

WETICE 2008 also includes invited presentations by experts from academia, industry and government. Moreover, a showcase session will be incorporated, presenting the different views introduced by European projects in the area of information society technologies (IST) in the context of collaborative working technologies.

FP7 Capacities Work Programme: Research for the Benefit of SMEs
III IMPLEMENTATION OF CALLS
Call title: Research for SMEs Call 2
• Call identifier: FP7-SME-2008-1
• Date of publication: 30 November 2007 10
• Deadline: 11 April 2008, at 17.00.00 h (Brussels local time)11
• Indicative budget 12 : EUR 92.72 million 13
• Topics: the call is open to all research fields
Activity/ Area Topics called Funding Scheme
2.1 Research for SMEs The call is open to all
research fields 14 Research for the benefit of specific groups
(in particular SMEs)
• Evaluation procedure: the evaluation will follow a single stage procedure; proposals
will not be evaluated anonymously.
• The evaluation criteria and sub-criteria (including weights and thresholds), together with
the eligibility, selection and award criteria, for the different funding schemes are set out
in Annex 2 to this work programme.
However, for this call, the threshold for the Potential impact criterion will be 4 (instead
of 3) and, as a consequence, the overall threshold will be 11 (instead of 10).
10 The Director-General responsible for the call may publish it up to one month prior to or after the envisaged
date of publication.
11 At the time of the publication of the call, the Director-General responsible may delay this deadline by up to
two months
12 The final budget awarded to this call, following the evaluation of projects, may vary by up to 10% of the total
value of the call.
13 Under the condition that the preliminary draft budget for 2008 is adopted without modifications by the budget
authority.
14 Research proposals within the scope of Annex I of the EURATOM Treaty, namely those directed towards
nuclear energy applications, should be submitted to relevant calls under the EURATOM 7th Framework
Programme.