CSFRS news
- Seminar « water and conflicting interests » : on December 6th, CSFRS, organized a seminar, which purpose was to review defence and security issues at stake in a strategic field : water. The increase of needs for various uses (drinking water, town supply, agriculture, energy production…) and/or downgraded quality of water give rise to tensions. the seminar was an opportunity to address institutional or operational answers which allow to anticipate and avoid conflicts linked with water issues, in two regions of the world : Near- and Middle-East and Asia.
This seminar was the first concrete expression of the partnership CSFRS just subscribed with VEOLIA Environment, who co-organized the event. VEOLIA Environment was represented by Pierre Victoria, deputy director for sustainable development, who delivered a speech.
The debates were led by Franck Galland, a well-known expert who wrote in particular « l’eau : géopolitique, enjeux, stratégies » (ed. CNRS 2008), who will also coordinate the publication of the results of the seminar in the forthcoming months.
See the introductory booklet (in French)
Events
To be noted
- « Europe must be state-of-the art in research on security » said the vice-president of the European Commission and commissioner for industry and entrepreneurship, Antonio Tajani. At the 5th conference on research on security, in Ostende (Belgium) on September 22th, Antonio Tajani declared: « Europe must be state-of-the-art in research on security in order to guarantee the best possible protection to its citizens and in order to maintain high standards of competitiveness for the security-related industry in Europe ». Well aware of these needs, the Council and the European Parliament gave a mandate to the Commission to coordinate and finance European security-related research. The European Commission currently finances more than 130 projects, at the level of 500 M€, in the framework of the technological FPRD, « FP7 ». Mr. Tajani declared himself satisfied by the interest raised by this program: more than 1000 participants (big companies, SMB, universities, public customers), applications in tenders widely exceeding available funds. He stressed that this program was the most efficient as far as the participation of small businesses was concerned. As examples of current projects, Mr. Tajani quoted security in public transportation, detection of explosive devices, fight against drug trafficking, safety equipments of first-aiders, innovating technologies to locate victims under collapsed buildings. Studies are also scheduled to enhance the monitoring of infrastructure networks.
- Digital agenda for Europe. On the occasion of the ICT-Digitally driven 2010 Forum (Brussels September 27/29), the European Commission gave the details of the 780 millions € budget that will be dedicated in 2011 to financing projects in the framework of the digital agenda of the European Union.
The corresponding tender (ICT 7) is open until January 11th, 2011 and covers various research areas. The ICT sector is an important part of the 7th FPRD : it amounts to more than 9Mds€ on a total of 53.2 Mds€ on 7 years (2007 to 2013). The increase of the financial disponibilities in this field follows the lines of the « digital agenda for Europe » which recommends a doubling of public as well as private expenditures in this sector.
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