http://www.sirrimed.orgSirrimed news.es-essirrimed.org 15 January 2013, Albert Borschette Conference Centre, Rue Froissart 36, Brussels The European Commission (Research & Innovation DG - Directorate Environment) is organising an InfoDay on FP7 Environment Research in the specific field of “water innovation demonstration projects’ on 15 January 2013 in Brussels. The event will focus on the Call FP7-ENV-2013-WATER-INNO-DEMO of the 2013 Work Programme. It aims to provide guidance on the preparation of proposals, to update proposers on recent progress by the European Innovation Partnership (EIP) on Water and to allow for brokerage amongst the participants. Registration will be opened on Friday, 15/11/2012 until 10/01/2013. Webstreaming will be available from 15/01/2013 onwards. 2013-01-15 The 13th Forum will highlight the main challenges and opportunities in research, development and innovation when considering entering the world market, and aims to promote and support international cooperation on eco-innovation. The Forum is specifically geared to water challenges at local, regional and global level. It also points to the need of associations to demonstrate technologies, methodologies and strategies to improve water management in new markets, as well as to examine the mobilization of finance, investment and public-private partnerships. This is the first time in this Forum for the participation of three European networks that have significantly influenced the agenda setting: Eco-Innovera (promoting eco-innovation through cooperation in research and dissemination), Ecopol (public company on innovation to improve policies and instruments in support of ecological and environmental innovation) and NCP-Together (promoting partnerships cooperating to improve their effectiveness). Recommendations and challenges, gaps and emerging issues raised during the Forum EcoAP 13 will be made available for consideration in the Strategic Implementation Plan of the EIP on Water, which will highlight the priority areas. The forum is intended to: • To understand local, regional and global water challenges, needs and how to perform well adapted solutions; • To promote local and global partnerships, especially with emerging economies; • To demonstrate the development of technologies, methodologies and strategies to support a better water management for new markets; • To mobilize finances, investment and public-private partnerships as essential tools to reach new markets for innovative water management. Furthermore, during the forum a BROKERAGE EVENT will take place, where it is expected to take place an intense activity for generating consortia and proposals aimed at the future call for 7thFP INNOWATER. In case your company is considering submitting a proposal to this line, it is recommended to consider the opportunity to attend and actively participate in this forum. 2012-11-26 The 20th and 21st June it took place the 4th Steering Committee Meeting of the SIRRIMED Project in Lancaster, which is under the 7th Frame Programme of the European Union. Representatives from the 15 partners in the project attended to the meeting in the UK. During this event, all the important advances in the project up until now were presented. Furthermore, the action plan for the next moths was as well presented, for a period up to the 31st December 2013. 2012-07-23 Every three years since 1997, the World Water Council, with a host country and city, organizes a forum that mobilizes creativity, innovation, competence and know-how in favor of water. The five World Water Forums organized since 1997 have placed water on the international political agenda. These processes mobilize thousands of water stakeholders from the 5 continents over a three year period and culminate in the Forum week. However this week is not an end in itself: it represents simply an important milestone in a continuous process combining dialogue, action and monitoring of the results. With an unifying and open-minded spirit, the World Water Forum strives to open its activities to the whole of the water stakeholders from the professional community, the water users, the Political arena and the civil society. As part of this forum, last 15th March, the SIRRIMED project was presented in Marseille by our colleague Oussama Mounzer. The project was included as a solution to save water under the title \"Sustainable use of irrigation water in the Mediterranean Region\", in the section 2.2.2., entitled \"Sustainable increase water productivity of irrigated agriculture.\" The proposed solution was selected as one of the most interesting contributions to resolve water problems in the Mediterranean Area, and was presented at the plenary session of the Forum. After the event, representatives of SIRRIMED had the opportunity to disseminate the project objectives both through scientific dialogue and through the dissemination of the main brochures and publications produced to date. 2012-03-12 SIRRIMED was presented in this Forum in December 2011. Bringing together experts from the North and the South of the Mediterranean this FORUM was the first of its kind, addressing issues such as: 1. De-contamination of the Mediterranean - industrial waste water, 2. Integrated Water Management and Waste Water, and sustainable technologies, 3. Innovation in Water and Waste Water Management in the Mediterranean and 4. Valorisation of research results and technology transfer. Presentations on policy tools, funding opportunities and international, national and regional initiatives followed interactive sessions serving as catalysts for collaboration opportunities. The attendance and active participation of numerous project representatives provided an opportunity for a very fruitful event. 2011-12-01 In November the 30th and December the 1st 2011, the 3rd Steering Committee Meeting of the SIRRIMED project took place in Agadir (Morocco). All the partners\' representatives attended and they presented the progress made during the last months on the work plan of the project for 2012. In addition, they visited the pilot plots in which the partners of Morocco are working. The next Steering Committee Meeting of the project will be held in 20 and 21 june 2012. As conclusion from the meeting, it must be noted the implementation of irrigation scheduling techniques and strategies on different crops is producing a considerable amount of useful data. Therefore, farm records and monitored soil-plant-atmosphere parameters were discussed in details looking for standardizing the common database and its benchmarking indicators and thus, a new version will be released for all partners to start contributing with their corresponding inputs and comments. For the development of district and watershed information systems, Key issues were identified and the corresponding tools were selected to establish coherent scenarios among different modeling tools. 2011-11-30 The Scientific and Technical Research Committee of the EU (CREST) and the European Research Advisory Board (EURAB) have published two reports with recommendations to improve research, development and innovation in Europe. On the one hand, the CREST has published fourteen recommendations to help the Member States and the regions of Europe to make better coordinated use of the Seventh Framework Programme (FP7) and the Structural Funds. For its part, EURAB calls also for measures to increase the use of Structural Funds in order to improve research and innovation The Scientific and Technical Research Committee of the EU (CREST) and the European Research Advisory Board (EURAB) have published two reports with recommendations to improve research, development and innovation in Europe. On the one hand, CREST publishes a report which includes fourteen recommendations in six priority areas to increase performance in research and development: planning of RTDI strategies, RTDI basis, excellence in research, international cooperation, exploitation of RTDI results and improvement of communication. CREST aims to help the Member States and the regions of Europe to make better coordinated use of the Seventh Framework Programme (FP7) and the Structural Funds. On this last point, the European Research Advisory Board (EURAB) has drafted a report which contains nine recommendations to increase the use of structural funds in order to improve research and innovation. Consult also: http://ec.europa.eu/research/eurab/index_en.html 2011-10-10 The European Association of Agricultural Economists has presented the prestigious award to the best scientific publication of the year 2010 in the journal European Review of Agricultural Economics – one of the most prestigious international publications in the field of agricultural economy – to Francisco Alcón, Professor of the School of Agronomists of Murcia and collaborator in the project SIRRIMED, for his article entitled \'Supply uncertainty and the economic value of irrigation water\'. This paper is about the economic value of irrigation water in the Campo de Cartagena. According to the publication, the farmers of the area would be willing to pay an additional amount for water in order to guarantee its availability in the medium term, i.e. over a period of five years. According to the researcher, the economic value of water for farmers is higher than public rates for water use. “What is most worrying is no longer the price, but the uncertainty faced by farmers concerning water supply”, says Alcón. Crops in the Campo de Cartagena are watered through the Tajo-Segura Aqueduct, since the resources of the region are almost inexistent. Farmers know every three months the availability of water for the next quarter. It is based on the amount stored in the header reservoirs: Entrepeñas and Buendia. The situation causes uncertainty as the farmer, when planning crops, does not know if the transferred amount of water will be enough to fulfil production requirements. Therefore, farmers cannot always use the water they need, but must adapt to the amount available depending on the transfer. The money that the farmers pay for water is not a market value, but a use fee established by the public administration, which is calculated on the basis of the cost of carrying water from its place of origin to the farmer’s plot. However, knowing the economic value of water, measured in terms of willingness to pay, is crucial to foresee the success or failure of implementing more efficient water policies. This article is part of the work developed by the research group on agrarian economy of the University of Cartagena, which has been involved in numerous projects on water management in recent years. Professor Alcón carries out research in this field since 2002. 2011-10-08 The Seventh Framework Programme (FP7) bundles all research-related Community initiatives together. The specific programme Capacities aims to enhance research and innovation capacities throughout Europe and ensure their optimal use. Under this programme, the Research for the benefit of SMEs area has been designed to strengthen the innovation capacity of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Europe and their contribution to the development of new technology-based products, process or services. Specifically, it is intended to give support to innovative SMEs to solve their technological problems or needs (common or complementary) with the ultimate goal of improving their competitiveness. Research activities are funded in all fields of science and technology (bottom-up approach, without focusing on a predefined subject area) through two schemas that allow outsourcing to providers of research activities (universities, research centres, other SMEs, technology centres…). These two schemas are: Research for SMEs and Research for SME associations: Research projects for SMEs target mainly low to medium technology SMEs with little or no research capability, but also high-tech SMEs who need to outsource research to complement their core research capability. These projects must create new knowledge or produce results with clear potential to improve or develop new products, processes or services for the participating SMEs, and include a specific strategy to put them on the market. Research projects for the benefit of SME associations are aimed at SME associations which act on behalf of their members to identify and address common technical problems. Projects may address larger topics (pre-normative research issues, technological adaptations related to new norms or standards, development of technical tools, etc.) with the aim of developing technical solutions to problems or needs common to a large number of SMEs in specific industrial sectors, and must include a specific strategy to ensure that the results are widely disseminated and implemented by the enterprises. EC funding reaches 75% of research costs, 50% of the demonstration costs and 100% of the costs of management and other activities (up to 110% of the subcontracting). The deadline for submitting proposals is December 6. 2011-10-01 Last September 2011 an interview to the Project coordinator of Sirrimed was published in the regional newspaper La verdad. With in this interview the project and foreseen results were presented. 2011-09-13