Symposium "20 Years of Progress in Radar Altimetry" - Venice, 24-29 September 2012
 
The Symposium on radar altimetry, organized by the European Space Agency (ESA), in collaboration with the French Space Agency (CNES), will take place in Venice (Lido) on 24-29 of September 2012.

The deadline for abstracts submission is the 15 of February 2012.

During the same week, a number of parallel meetings will be organized, including: the annual meeting of the Ocean Surface Topography Science Team (OSTST), the International Doris Service (IDS) Workshop and the Argo Science Workshop.


[31/1/2012] http://www.altimetry2012.org/

Horizon 2020
 
The proposal for a new EU framework for research and innovation, called Horizon 2020, has been adopted by the European Commission on the 30th of November 2011.
Horizon 2020 will focus resources on three distinct priorities:
1. Excellent Science: to provide a boost to top-level research in Europe.
2. Industrial Leadership: to provide major investment in key industrial technologies and help innovative SMEs.
3. Societal Challenges: to address major concerns shared by all Europeans such as health, demographic change, food security, sustainable agriculture, marine and maritime research, climate change, developing sustainable transport and mobility, making renewable energy more affordable.

The new programme foresee that at least 60 % of the total Horizon 2020 budget will be related to sustainable development and around 35% of the total budget will be dedicated to climate related research.

The proposal now passes to the European Council and Parliament for the adoption of the legislative acts. The last call of FP7 is planned for July 2012 and the new research and innovation programme, Horizon 2020, will start on 1st of January 2014.
Official documents are available on the EC website
[16/12/2011] Horizon 2020

NEREUS General Assembly and the EU Space Policy Conference
 
The 5th NEREUS General Assembly took place in Bruxelles on 8 November 2011 in parallel with the EU Space Policy Conference "A European Space Policy for citizens and society".
NEREUS – Network of European Regions Using Space Technologies – is an International non-profit Association, constituted in 2008. Today the Network gathers in its organization 26 European regions and 34 Associate members (industries, SME, Universities, public and private research centers). The aim of the General Assembly, held in the Committee of the Regions, was to outline the main aspects of the NEREUS work programme for 2012.CORILA, Associate Member of NEREUS and leader of the NEREUS Working Group on GNSS (Galileo Navigation Satellite System), participated to the Assembly, presenting the activities of the GNSS WG.

In parallel, the 4th EU Space Policy Conference, held at the Hemicycle of the European Parliament, focused on the benefits of EU space policy for citizens and society, governance and funding problems, taking into particular account the industrial policy and the development of space applications oriented to the needs of EU policies and citizens.
At the end of the day, NEREUS organized an exhibition for all the participants to the Conference with the objective to show the regional policies and programmes on the use of space technologies.
[1/12/2011] www.nereus-regions.eu Space Conference

Integrated Coastal Zone Management
 
The OURCOAST Stakeholders Conference- "Integrated Coastal Zone Management in Europe: the way forward"- will take place on 27 and 28 October 2011 in Riga (Latvia).
The Conference, organized under the auspices of the Ourcoast project, will focus on the exchange of experiences and best practices in integrated coastal zone management.

OURCOAST is a three year project commissioned by the Directorate- General Environment of the European Commission and developed by a consortium led by ARCADIS and its sub-contractor the Coastal & Marine Union (EUCC). Through OURCOAST, the European Commission aims to ensure that lessons learned from the coastal management experiences and practices can be shared and are made accessible to those who are seeking sustainable solutions to their coastal management practices.
The project collected description and evaluation of about 350 ICZM case studies.
CORILA has participated to the project coordinating the collection of Italian case studies: 11 sites across 6 Italian regions (Lazio, Liguria, Sardinia, Sicily, Tuscany and Veneto).
[20/10/2011] Ourcoast website

VisionRD4SD Scope 2 Workshop
 
We are happy to announce that the 2nd Scope workshop will take place the 24-25 October 2011 in Venice, at Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei (FEEM) ).
VISION RD4SD is a Coordinated Action (2011-2013) financially supported by the European Commission 7th Framework Program. The main objective of VISION RD4SD is to develop a shared vision between science funding bodies and national science policy institutions in the European member states on how best to harness Research and Development for Sustainable Development (RD4SD) ).
The aim of the second scope workshop will be to extend the discussions from the Scope 1 workshop, using material from the case studies and from background material, to develop shared perceptions on the current state of efforts to harness R&D for SD, and to discuss the overall context within which this harnessing takes place.
[15/9/2011] further info at VISION webpage