After iterative fruitful discussions and brainstorming among the coordination team, the first draft of the FInES Position Paper «Embarking on New Research Orientations towards Horizon 2020» is now publicly available!

The next FInES Cluster meeting will be held on Monday May 6th, 2013, at the EC DG CONNECT premises in Brussels (BU 25 0/S1, Avenue de Beaulieu 25, Room 0/S1, 1160 Brussels). 

The meeting is expected to be a milestone event in the history of the Cluster (see recent developments reported in the March 2013 edition of the FInES Cluster Newsletter).

As FP7 begins to draw to a close, new strategic priorities have emerged. Under the mission of DG CONNECT Unit E3 "Net Innovation", notions such as business innovation and topics such as web entrepreneurship are gaining new impetus. To ensure that the FInES community will continue to make a relevant, effective and unique contribution to the field, and in response to the invitation of Unit E3 to provide inputs, a Position Paper will be produced by the FInES Cluster. The aim is to convey the community's new vision and recommendations towards Horizon 2020 (H2020).

With the encouragement of the European Commission and the commitment of a community that is historically associated with Objective 1.3 "Digital Enterprise" of the FP7 ICT Work Programme, the FInES Cluster is forging ahead in embracing new initiatives and impetus. This includes, in particular, tighter coordination and integration with other thematic areas of Unit E3, namely the Future Internet PPP, Web Entrepreneurship and Collective Awareness Platforms. Already, members of the FInES community are active in these areas; with past work of the Cluster directly contributing to new direction and focal points of several neighbouring domains.

You may know that as a result the reorganization of DG CONNECT in July this year the management of the Digital Enterprise projects, including the FInES CLUSTER are under the responsibility of my Unit CONNECT  E3.