Brussels, Nov 2002

As reported in FAST, the bi-weekly email newsletter published by the Science and Technology Office of the Embassy of France to the United States, France is working on bi-lateral research tie-ups within the EU and beyond.

The Academy of Finland, a specialist research funding organisation, reveals in a November press release that it has launched a five-project research programme to promote what it calls proactive information technologies, called PROACT, and the French Research Ministry is participating in three of them, to the tune of just under €2 million.

PROACT focuses on wireless technologies, body sensor devices for health care applications, hands-free PC interfaces, as well as other solutions. It also focuses on ways to get various elements of a smart environment thinking and working together.

The first call for applications under PROACT was launched in March 2002 and the programme is scheduled to run for three years until 2005, with Academy funding totalling €5.7 million.

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France and China get together

France's Research Minister and former astronaut, Claudie Haigneré, took the opportunity in a recent visit to China to promote greater Franco-Chinese research co-operation. She announced plans to form a joint medical research centre to be located within Shanghai's Rui Jin teaching hospital.

Agence Presse report that six initial projects have been selected focusing on applied genomic research into infectious disease. The collaboration will be strengthened by a researcher mobility programme encouraging extended exchanges of scientists between the countries. On the French side, three public research organisations have expressed interest in being involved, the Comité National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), the Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale (INSERM), and the Institut Pasteur.

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One of the objectives of this research cross-fertilisation would be the establishment of a new set of therapeutic insights and methods resulting from the mixing of two scientific cultures.

Contact: fast@ambafrance-us.org

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