The HIGHER EDUCATION AUTHORITY
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| Updated 25 January 2003 |
French competition encourages creation of innovative
technological enterprises
The French Ministry for Research and New Technologies in association with
ANVAR (Agence nationale de valorisation de la recherche) and the European
Social Fund has launched the fifth national competition to encourage the
creation of innovative technological enterprises.
The competition aims to discover and reward the best technological innovation
projects.
Projects eligible for participation in the competition are:
- Projects that are just getting off the ground and need time to develop
and mature. The winners from this category will receive a grant of up
to 45,000 euro to finance up to 70 per cent of the services needed in
order to complete the project.
- Projects at a more advanced stage where the creation of a business enterprise
is being completed. Winners from this category will receive, after the
business enterprise is set up, a grant of up to 450,000 euro, which will
be used to finance up to 50 per cent of the innovation programme.
All the winners will benefit from the support network that encompasses
the competition as well as access to facilities provided by support and
finance institutions.
Special prizes will be given to the three most promising projects of the
year and to the two best projects presented by PhD students and young
graduates respectively.
Interested participants from France and the other Member States of the
EU, whether they be students, unemployed or working in the public or private
sector, are invited to participate in this competition: The objective
of the project or innovative concept must be to set up a business enterprise
in France which promotes innovative technology.
For further details about the rules of the competition and to obtain an
application form, please consult the following web site:
http://www.recherche.gouv.fr/technologie/concours
Commission funds project to establish leading European
computing grid network
An EU funded project has demonstrated the viability and benefit to end-users
of a transnational computing grid in four specific areas of application.
The EUROGRID project brings together 11 partners from six European countries,
with the aim of creating an international network of high performance
computing centres. The project has received just over two million euro
in funding from the IST programme of the Fifth Framework Programme.
Computational grids are fast becoming the standard for high-performance
computing research and infrastructure. However, the wide adoption of grid
technology in the scientific community has yet to happen, and industrial
users are lagging even further behind. The EUROGRID project demonstrates
the use of grids in four selected scientific areas in an attempt to highlight
the advantages of the technology.
The use of simulation and visualisation technology, alongside molecule
databases, is a regular feature of modern biomolecular research, but the
differences and incompatibility of many of the packages can create real
problems for users. The Bio-GRID section of the project has developed
standard user interfaces for selected biomolecular packages and compatibility
interfaces for their databases. The result is a toolkit allowing streamlined
work processes and access to all systems in the Bio-GRID with a uniform
and intuitive user interface.
The CAE-GRID section of the project is focussed on delivering solutions
for small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) that use computer aided
engineering tools within, for example, the aerospace and automotive industries.
Often these smaller companies lack in-house computer systems of sufficient
power, so the ASP (application service provider) scheme allows external
providers of computing power to run their job and bill them according
to the resources used.
Key issues in the success of such a scheme include the confidentiality
and security of client data and accuracy of billing. Therefore, accounting
and billing functions are integrated into the EUROGRID system, and an
ASP system for computer aided engineering packages has also been developed.
EUROGRID relies on a proven grid system consisting of three distinct software
tiers: a client that the user interacts with to execute computational
jobs, a gateway acting as a single point of entry into the protected domains
of the supercomputing centres, and a server that schedules and executes
the jobs on the local high-performance platform.
The three year EUROGRID project will run until October 2003, and there
will be an opportunity to see a demonstration of the software at the EUROGRID
workshop which will be held prior to the Euroweb 2002 conference at St
Anne's college Oxford on 16 December.
For further information, please consult the following web address:
http://www.eurogrid.org
Europe's broadband subscribers more willing to
pay for content
New research published by Jupiter Research shows that broadband subscribers
in Europe are more willing to pay for web-based content than narrowband
users.
The report found that whereas only 18 per cent of narrowband users would be prepared to pay for downloadable music, 25 per cent of broadband users would consider paying for the service. For downloading films, 18 percent of broadband subscribers would be prepared to pay, compared to 11 per cent of users with a narrowband connection.
A large minority of users however, whatever their connection speeds, are still unwilling to pay for content. Some 41 per cent of those surveyed stated that all content on the Internet should be free of charge, down from 47 per cent this time last year.
Electronic commerce : seven member states, including
Ireland, warned for not implementing EU directive.
Seven EU Member States - Belgium, France, Greece, Ireland, Italy, the
Netherlands and Portugal - will soon be receiving another warning in the
form of a reasoned opinion for failing to notify national measures implementing
the EU Directive on electronic commerce, the European Commission said
on January 6. Directive 2000/31/EC requires Member States to establish
a legal framework, which ensures the free movement of information society
services throughout the European Union and which allows electronic commerce
to benefit fully from the Internal Market. It came into force on July
17, 2000 and should have been transposed into national law by January
17, 2002 at the latest. The Member States had in fact approved this short
implementation period because they agreed that it was urgent to set up
a legal framework for electronic commerce, but now they are obviously
struggling to apply it in practice.
Europe's fastest growing high tech companies identified
The top 500 fastest growing high-tech companies in Europe have been identified
by the international professional services company, Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu.
The fastest growing company is identified as Danionics A/S from Denmark,
a producer of lithium-ion polymer batteries. The top ten also includes
two Norwegian companies, three UK companies, one Dutch company and two
Israeli companies. The average three year revenue growth for all 500 companies
is 528 per cent.
Igal Brightman, Global Leader of Deloitte's technology, media and telecommunications
(TMT) group said that these companies' 'vision, strategies and innovation
have made them not only successful companies, but the true growth leaders
of the TMT sector.'
'Although the technology sector has been severely challenged by a major
economic slowdown, these companies have found successful ways to develop
products and services that fit the needs of the technology market and
outpace their competitors,' added Karel Bakkes, Deloitte's partner in
charge of the survey.
Public and private technology companies based in Europe, Israel, Russia
and South Africa are included in the top 500. The survey used the three
year average revenue growth of each company between 1999 and 2001 to determine
the ranking.
While all TMT industries are represented in the 2002 ranking, the most
dominant industry is software, representing 179 companies or 36 per cent
of the list. The regions with the fastest growing companies are the UK
with 142, France with 99, Germany with 54 and Norway with 50.
To see a full list of the top 500 companies:
http://www.fast500europe.com