The DG JRC promoting collaboration with Romanian S&T organisations

JRC Information DayBucharest, 11/05/06

Dr. Roland Schenkel, Director GeneralJoint Research CentreEuropean Commission

http://www.jrc.cec.eu.int

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… to provide customer-driven scientific and technical support for the conception, development, implementation and monitoring of EU policies …

…the JRC functions as a centre of science and technology reference for the EU, independent of special interests, private and national

JRC’s Mission

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The structure of the JRC

7 Institutes in 5 Member States 2650 staff (+ 250 competitive)

300 M€/y budget (+ 40 M€/y competitive)

IE - Petten The Netherlands-Institute for Energy

IRMM - Geel Belgium- Institute for Reference Materials and Measurements

ITU - Karlsruhe Germany - Institute for Transuranium Elements

IPSC - IHCP - IES - Ispra Italy - Institute for the Protection and Security of the Citizen- Institute for Health and Consumer Protection- Institute for Environment and Sustainability

IPTS - Seville Spain- Institute for Prospective Technological Studies

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• EU Policy support: intensive interaction with policy DG’s and relevant stakeholders: direct scientific/technical input into legislative process; operational support: alert/anticipation, quick response functions and monitoring of compliance (e.g., crop declarations under Common Agricultural Policy)

• Scientific-technical reference systems: establish standardised methodologies and measurement protocols (GMO, BSE/TSE, environmental quality, nuclear safety etc)

• Research partnerships: European Research Area, user laboratories, access to large facilities, networks, training and mobility, co-operations

• Specific actions towards New Member States and Candidate Countries

JRC Typology of Activities

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JRC Work Programme 2003-2006 (1)

3 core competencies

Food, Chemical Products and Health (food safety & quality, food chain & consumer protection, GMOs, chemical products, alternative testing methods, biomedical technologies, health & environment) IRMM, IHCP and IPTS (mainly)

Environment and Sustainability (air, water & soil quality, land resources, sustainability issues, climate change, ecosystem monitoring, energy technologies) IES, IE, IPTS and IHCP (mainly)

Nuclear Safety and Security (waste treatment & storage, nuclear non-proliferation, reactor safety, radiation monitoring, basic actinide research). ITU, IE, IRMM and IPSC

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JRC Work Programme 2003-2006 (2)

Horizontal activities

Techno-Economic Studies (technology & techno-economic foresight, statistical methods for analysis of economic indicators). IPTS

Reference Materials and Measurements (reference materials &methods, certified reference materials, radionuclide metrology, neutron data measurements). IRMM

Public Security and Antifraud (antifraud technologies, cybersecurity, technological & natural emergencies, humanitarian aid). IPSC, IES, IPTS (mainly)

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JRC towards FP7:Future Priorities

• Support to the Lisbon Process (digital divide, econometric tools, interplay between innovation and regulation, standards and references in support of growth, …)

• Increasing Internal and External security (addressing terrorist threats, combating proliferation of CBRN, support border control, …)

• Understanding of the relationship between Environment and Health (exposure to harmful agents -especially with respect to children-, epidemiological studies, public health studies, enviro- and toxico-genomics, chemical stressors, …)

• Sustainable Agriculture (integrated use of agricultural resources, protection of the agri-environment and of the landscape, social issues, monitoring impact of changes in the use of the European land, ...)

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JRC Enlargement & Integration Action

Strategic Objectives: • To help the New Member

States and Candidate Countries take up and implement the “EU acquis” in areas of JRC competence

• To contribute to the development of the “European Research Area”

Tools: • Workshops; training; project cooperation; dedicated temporary positions; short

visits…• About 100 enlargement workshops/year involving some 4000 experts

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Example: 2nd EU Industrial R&D Investment Scoreboard

“Investing in research: an action plan for Europe”

COM (2003)226: to raise investment in research up to 3% GDP

• Top 500 EU and non-EU corporate R&D investors

• Instructive, up-to-date comparisons between companies, sectors, and geographical areas, as well as a picture of the competitive situation of EU firms in the global R&D environment

• This scoreboard exercise will be repeated annually

• 2005 scoreboard launched by Commissioner Potočnik in December

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Example - Emergency Management: Floods

LISFLOOD

JRC European Data

Soils, Land-use,

Elevation, rivers

Member States data

- River

dimensions,

Alert levels

Flood model:

Flood simulation & forecasting

River basin management

Land use planning

…

Alerts of few days in advance of actual flood events were given in 2005 and previously for the rivers Danube, Siret, Arges and Vedea. For 2006 a new collaboration is being established with the National Institute of Hydrology and Water Management

Meteo

data

Rainfall

Temperature

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• A consortium of 74 national GMO enforcement control laboratories from EU Member States

• Development of science-based validation and harmonization of analytical tools for the traceability and authentication of GMOs and their derived products

• Several training courses for identification and labeling of GMO in food products at Ispra.

• Observer from Romania: University of Agricultural Sciences and Veterinary Medicine, Cluj-Napoca

ENGL – The European Network of GMO Laboratories

GMO detectionGMO detectionGMO detectionGMO detection

GMO identificationGMO identificationGMO identificationGMO identification

GMO quantificationGMO quantificationGMO quantificationGMO quantification

< 0.9%

> 0.9%

No labeling

labeling

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Combating Illicit Trafficking of Nuclear Materials

• Since 1993: more 600 confirmed cases of illicit trafficking of radioactive and nuclear material, some 300 of them in the past 5 years

• About 400 samples analyzed annually (including for ESO and IAEA)• A National Exercise on Preventing and Combating Nuclear Terrorism is organised

by CNCAN (National Commission for Nuclear Activities Control) in the Carpathian Region (Cheile Rasnoavei) on 10 May with participation from JRC

Techniques for identifying nature of seized material, assess risk, locate originContacts with law enforcement agencies and nuclear forensics developmentAssistance to NMS and CC (advice, training, equipment supply)Maintain / update database on commercial nuclear materials

JRC support:

CentrifugeCentrifuge assembly areasassembly areas

Centrifuge pilot plantCentrifuge pilot plant

AdministrationAdministration

CentrifugeCentrifugeCascade hallsCascade hallsSupportSupport

buildingbuilding

Underground entranceUnderground entrance

Earth coveringEarth coveringincompleteincomplete

Crisis Response: recent examplesRelevant events Type of response

Food Quality 2005: potential imports of Bt-10 contaminated maize

Validation of detection method

Natural hazards 2005: Floods in Northern Alps Forest Fires 2005: Pakistan earthquake

Early warning; damage assessment for DG REGIO Early warning & damage assessment (continuous monitoring) Damage assessment by satellite

Transport 2004: PRESTIGE accident Monitoring surface oil, conception of technical solutions for remediation

Industrial accident 2005: fire of Buncefield oil depot (UK)

Modelling dispersion of smoke plume; delivered to DG ENV

Nuclear issues Illicit trafficking (several significant cases since 1994)

Nuclear forensic analysis techniques, advice and training

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DG JRC’s quest for scientific excellence

PublicationsAwards

Nano Letters, 4 (6), 1047 -1050, 2004. Fabrication of Nanostructured Polymeric Surfaces for Biosensing

Devices

Andrea Valsesia,* Pascal Colpo, Miguel Manso Silvan, Tarik Meziani, Giacomo Ceccone, and Francois Rossi

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Increasing JRC collaboration with Romania

• 39 Romanian researchers are currently working at the DG JRC institutes within projects of interest to JRC and Romania

• 32 JRC networks and projects involve Romanian partners covering core competence areas of the JRC

• 320 Romanian experts participated in 102 JRC specialised workshops in 2005 dealing with S&T aspects of the EU acquis

• 8 JRC workshops organised in Romania in 2005

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Objective of JRC Information Event in Romania 2006

• To report on successful collaborations with JRC since last year’s event and present the 2006 programme

• To update to on future plans of EU R&D programmes (JRC, COST and FP7)

• To discuss more in depth collaboration within two priority areas of research for both JRC and Romania, namely,

• Global Monitoring for Environment and Security

• Nuclear R&D

GOVERNMENT OF ROMANIA

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION

AND RESEARCH

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DG JRC –

Robust Science for Policy Making

Thank you for your attention