from the brochure:

The EU budget for research and innovation is increasing every year - we can show you how you can get involved. You will get first-hand information about priorities, objectives and participation rules and in special sessions you will get the practical advice you really need. We will be paying particular attention to promising ideas from the new Member States. The event will present three major ongoing research initiatives:

• The Seventh Framework Programme (FP7), 2007-2013

• The Structural Funds, 2007-2013 and

• The Competitiveness and Innovation Programme (CIP), 2007-2013

Opportunities on offer:

• Plenary sessions with the main European political players

• Parallel sessions on EU research initiatives

• Hands-on sessions with FP7 participants, European organisations, etc.

• Presentations of successful projects

• Guidance on how to participate in EU research programmes (rules, tips, measures for small- and medium-sized enterprises, etc.)

• Forum sessions on how to maximise participation in EU research programmes organised on a 'bottom-up' basis by the participants themselves.
• A call for proposals targeting potential contributors will be published in 2008 on the conference website.(www.ec.europa.eu/research/rtd-2009)
• participation fee: 30/50 EUR

You will be able to speak to members of NET4SOCIETY at booth 33 "Crossing Borders". 

Together with PLATON+, another FP7 project targeting socio-economic and humanities research, NET4SOCIETY invites you 
to use the presence of both our projects to exchange ideas and perspectives on fruitful interdisciplinary 
cooperation and use of socio-economic knowledge.

SPECIAL WORKSHOP HERA with participation of NET4SOCIETY:  May 8, 15.30 - 16.15 hours, Room Club B&C: 

The value of culture and creativity: How to build a successful and competitive European community

Proposed audience: 

interdisciplinary audience which will be informed about the contributions humanities research can offer in creating a successful and competitive European community.

Topics:

• How can humanities research contribute to the creation of a successful and competitive European community? What contributions can the humanities bring to common societal challenges and problems such as climate change, brain diseases, aging and scarcity of resources?
• Humanities scholars already contribute to policy making in many areas. Examples are ethicists participating in genomics discussions; scholars from religion studies participating in the Islam debates, historians participating in the discussion about the credit crunch explaining about the impact of measures taken in earlier crises, linguist and cultural scientists participating in the discussions on nation and identity formation, etc. In what areas are they still not participating but should be?
• Knowledge of humanities research is necessary to study and explain language & communication, beliefs & behaviour, ethical issues, identity formation, etc. What benefit could other (technological) research projects have from interacting with humanities researchers?
• Contributions from humanities research are not always recognized as such. What can humanities scholars do to better explain and claim their impact and importance?

The workshop will consist of a keynote presentation by Professor Wolfgang Mackiewicz. His speech will be followed by a number of short statements/comments by other representatives from humanities research both from old and new member states and some high level representatives from the Directorate-General for Research of the European Commission, Directorate L "Science, economy and society" and from some national research councils. Finally some time will be reserved for discussion with other workshop participants:

• Professor Wolfgang Mackiewicz, Director of the Language Centre and Honorary Professor of English Philology at the Freie Universität Berlin (FUB). Professor Wolfgang Mackiewicz chaired the Expert Group on the Humanities in FP7, he is the chair of the Expert Advisory Group for Social Sciences and the Humanities in FP7 and of the Assessment of University-Based Research Expert Group.
• Professor Philip Esler, Chair Humanities in the European Research Area (HERA) Network Board / Chief executive Arts and Humanities Research Council, UK and Chair in Biblical Criticism at St Andrews in the United Kingdom.
• Dr. Jean-Michel Baer, Director "Science, economy and society" at the DG RTD of the European Commission.
• Professor Ruta Marcinkeviciene, Head of the Computational Linguistics at Vytautas Magnus University in Kaunas and vice- president of the Lithuanian Research Council, head of the Committee of Social Sciences and Humanities.
• Professor Milena Žic Fuchs, Chair of the Standing Committee for the Humanities of the European Science Foundation (ESF) and Chair in Linguistics in the English Department of the University of Zagreb in Croatia.
• Dr. Marie Louise Stig Sørensen, Project Coordinator of the FP7 SSH collaborative project CRIC Identity and Conflict: Cultural Heritage and the Re-construction of Identities after Conflict and Senior Lecturer at the Department of Archaeology at Cambridge University – to be confirmed.
• Ms. Angela Schindler-Daniels, PT-DLR - Coordinator of NET4SOCIETY / NCP network for Social Sciences and the Humanities.
• Ms. Annemarie Bos, Co-ordinator Humanities in the European Research Area (HERA) network / Director Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research, Humanities department, the Netherlands.