Until the closure of the call for Expressions of Interest (EoI) on November 3, 2009, a total of 190 EoI were received by the Joint Call Secretariat at DLR. This high number indicates very impressively the huge interest in the cooperation in R&D between the 14 SEE-ERA.NET PLUS countries and the strong demand for a funding instrument as it is offered to scientists with the SEE-ERA.NET PLUS Joint Call.

The submitted 190 EoI are distributed among the thematic subfields as follows:
In the field of AgroFood:

80 EoI for a. Preservation of indigenous species and traditional food products (in SEE/WBC)
32 EoI for b. Interdisciplinary field: Land use impact in agriculture on biodiversity.

In the field of ICT:

46 EoI for c. Software systems for learning process management and support
32 EoI for d. ICT for energy efficiency

163 out of these 190 EoI were eligible and evaluated by two evaluators. According to the broad scope of the call, 97 evaluators from 23 different EU Member States, the WBCs and Turkey have been involved in the evaluation process of the EoI. Finally, after consultation with the Scientific Council composed of renowned scientists of all 14 SEE-ERA.NET PLUS countries, 75 project consortia were invited to hand in a full proposal until March 15, 2010. Finally, 71 full proposals have been submitted from which 70 turned out to be eligible (23 in the field of ICT and 47 in the field of AgroFood).

The final funding decision will be taken by the SEE-ERA.NET PLUS project consor-tium together with the European Commission in June 2010. The funded projects will start shortly after the decision and are expected to run for one to two years.

A grafic chart is available in the pdf version of the WBC-INCO.NET journal (page 15).