EU Commission: Information and Society 05/09/08

Cut red tape to attract venture capital to cutting edge high-tech research, Commission tells Parliament and Council (04/09/2008)
The Commission today called on the Parliament and Council to support a new drive to cut red tape and allow greater flexibility to make European high-tech research more effective. It was responding to the 'Aho report', the most comprehensive evaluation of EU ICT research yet, looking beyond the management of research to evaluate its impact on innovation. The report highlighted that EU research could be of greater benefit for European competitiveness by involving and supporting high growth companies and providing better links between research and venture capital. The Commission, which has launched several initiatives to involve leading companies in research (IP/08/910, IP/08/824, IP/08/785), is committed to making the information and communications technology (ICT) research it supports more effective in terms of delivering business opportunities. It is also launching a public consultation that will feed into proposals to this end in early 2009. [Europa]

Opening soon: a digital library for Europe 11/08/08
Europe's cultural diversity in books, music, paintings, photographs, and films open to all citizens at the click of a mouse via one portal – this dream of a European Digital Library could become reality this autumn. However, further efforts by the EU Member States are needed, said the Commission today in a new Communication on making available digital versions of works from cultural institutions all over Europe. Digitisation of cultural works can give Europeans access to material from museums, libraries and archives abroad without having to travel or turn hundreds of pages to find a piece of information. Europe's libraries alone contain more than 2.5 billion books, but only about 1% of archival material is available in digital form. The Commission therefore called on Member States to do more to make digitised works available online for Europeans to browse them digitally, for study, work or leisure. The Commission itself will provide some € 120 million in 2009-2010 for improving online access to Europe's cultural heritage. [Europa]

Supporting social tourism 21/08/08
The Tourism Unit of the European Commission’s Enterprise and Industry DG is promoting the exchange of good practice on social tourism through a series of conferences and workshops, launched in 2006, as part of the Commission’s drive to promote tourism in the context of the Lisbon strategy. The most recent, in Brussels in April 2008, was on the topic ‘Facilitating the growth of the youth and senior citizen tourism markets’. In addition to various actions supported by the Commission, good practices in tourism by local authorities and private sector from several parts of Europe were also reviewed. [Europa]