CORDIS, the Community Research and Development Information Service, has updated its 'Find a project' service for the Sixth Framework Programme for research (FP6) with project profiles from the third thematic priority, covering 'Nanotechnologies and nanoscience, knowledge-based multifunctional materials, and new production processes and devices' (NMP).

The objective of research funding in this area is to move European industry toward a more knowledge-based and environmentally friendly approach, combining materials sciences, nanotechnology, production technologies, information technologies and biotechnologies. The indicative budget allocated to the NMP priority for the duration of FP6 is 1,429 million euro.

The projects now accessible via the FP6 Projects service resulted from the very successful first call for proposals in 2002. Of the 12,000 proposals received for the first five billion euro of funding available under FP6, some 20 per cent were for NMP projects, the highest level of participation of any thematic priority.

The confirmed projects include three Networks of Excellence (NoE), five Integrated Projects (IP), two SME-specific IPs, as well as traditional instruments totalling 38 STREPs, five coordinating actions (CA) and 11 specific supporting actions (SSA). The funding available for this first call was over 500 million euro.

With scientific quality and distribution of the projects highly satisfactory, the main scope for improvement lies with increasing industrial participation, and this has been addressed in the 2004 calls for proposals. There are currently two open calls: one thematic call within the NMP priority, and one joint call between NMP and IST.

The thematic NMP call for research proposals in the area of computational materials science (including crystal growth, molecular and nanoelectronics, and quantum computing) has a total budget of six million euro, while the joint IST-NMP call for projects on bio-sensors for diagnosis and healthcare is funded to the tune of 180 million euro. These calls close on 14 October 2004.

The FP6 Find a Project service already holds project profile information for all confirmed FP6-funded IST and JRC projects, as well as Euratom fission projects.

For further information, please consult the FP6 Projects service at the following web address:
http://www.cordis.lu/fp6/projects.htm

As well as the FP6 NMP section:
http://www.cordis.lu/fp6/nmp.htm

and the CORDIS thematic Nanotechnology service:
http://www.cordis.lu/nanotechnology/

Detailed information on the open NMP calls for proposals is to be found at:
http://fp6.cordis.lu/nmp/calls.cfm