The objective of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) research under the EU’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7) is to improve the competitiveness of European industry – as well as to enable Europe to master and shape the future developments of these technologies so that the demands of its society and economy are met. Ideal-ist helps to bring international researchers together to work on common challenges.

Ideal-ist results in ICT calls
From May to November 2007, 124 partner searches were initiated on Ideal-ist, covering the 2nd ICT call and the joint call ICT-Security of the FP7. After the Ideal-ist quality team and the National Contact Points (NCP) screened the partner searches and advised necessary amendments, 80 partner searches were finally published with a quality label (pre-defined objective and subjective criteria fulfilled) and generated over 3.000 responses in forms of expressions of interest. Due to an increased support provided by Ideal-ist to the proposers, more than 60 percent of the quality-labelled partner searches were finally submitted as project proposals to the European Commission. The partner searches and expressions of interest furthermore express a geographical balance: Not only EU Member States and Associated Countries, but also Third Countries strongly use the partner search platform. Thus, important links for cooperation with India, Russia, Canada and other countries could be strengthened through Ideal-ist. The results show that Ideal-ist continues to be a valuable platform for linking SMEs, research centres, universities and large companies. And last but not least Ideal-ist (and the network of NCPs behind it) helps less experienced organisations and newcomers to get started in FP7 by establishing contacts with research organisations, which are more experienced in European research projects.

"Research organisations which still need international partners for their project idea should soon take a closer look at the Ideal-ist partner search platform", emphasizes Mohsine Chefki, the coordinator of Ideal-ist. "The results in recent ICT calls suggest that measures taken to adapt our partner search mechanism have proven to be very effective", he continues. "Ideal-ist now offers a brand new technical approach for partner searches and a quality procedure to check partner searches before publishing them." Ideal-ist also introduced an RSS feed to make it easier to catch up with the latest partner searches.

3rd ICT call is open: Status quo of Ideal-ist partner search
The 3rd call for proposals under the ICT theme of the FP7 cooperation programme has opened on December 4, 2007 and closes on April 8, 2008. This call concentrates on proposals in three areas within the challenges of “Cognitive systems, interaction, robotics” and of “Digital Libraries and content, intelligent content and semantics”. The call also promotes research in three new areas of “FET - Future and Emerging Technologies”, being specifically: “The science of complex systems for socially intelligent ICT”, “Embodied intelligence” and “ICT forever yours”. The call has a committed budget of €265m and the closing date for proposals is April 8, 2008. The Ideal-ist partner search platform is open for new partner searches related to this call since October 2007. Up to now 45 partner searches have been launched from various countries, 24 of these have already received a quality label and been distributed by FP7 ICT National Contact Points and other Ideal-ist representatives to national research communities in 49 countries. So far, the 24 partner searches have received 1.283 expressions of interest, meaning an average of 53 replies from interested organisations per partner search launched through Ideal-ist.

Ideal-ist at a glance
Ideal-ist is the first quality-labelled international ICT partner search network, part-funded by the European Commission. Ideal-ist supports ICT research organisations and companies worldwide to find partners for their project ideas, to join projects or to find services which help to succeed in FP7 – with a special focus on SMEs and newcomers. The Ideal-ist network consists of 49 ICT National Contact Points or organisations working on behalf of them from EU Member States and Associated States, as well as the Western Balkan Countries, Newly Independent States and Mediterranean Countries. Ideal-ist also collaborates with partners in Third Countries such as China, Brazil, India, and South Africa in line with the international cooperation strategy of the European Commission.
Find more information on the Ideal-ist web portal www.ideal-ist.net

Source: Ideal-Ist Press Release
Further information (Press Contact):
Ideal-ist7FP | c/o Austrian Research Promotion Agency
Frank Schneider | Public Relations Ideal-ist7FP
E-Mail: idealist@ffg.at

You find the project's latest newsletter also attached below.