Dear EUROP members,

It is quite encouraging to start the new year with several inquiries from the NCPs and other organisations interested in cooperating with EUROP member organisations concerning joint collaborations, research activites and exchange of ideas. Therefore, please update your profile on the EUROP website if you have not already done so. It is of utmost importance to regularly update your profile and to include as much relevant information as possible. An updated profile will allow various organisations to conduct a search through the website and contact the organisations they are interested in collaborating with.

We have included the following topics in this edition:

• Call for participation at EURON / EUROP Annual Meeting 
• Present your state-of-the-art products at the EURON / EUROP Annual Meeting 
• ECHORD 2nd call for robotics equipment is open now
• New Commissioner responsible for robotics
• Update/upload your profile on the EUROP website (complete instructions attached)                
• 2010 Oporto International Film Festival celebrating robotics as their main theme

Do not miss the opportunity to register and attend the EURON /EUROP Annual Meeting on March 10-12, in San Sebastian. We have organised a variety of interesting workshops for all robotics enthusiasts. 

I look forward to seeing you all soon in San Sebastian.

Rainer Bischoff 

Call for participation at EURON / EUROP Annual Meeting 10-12 March, 2010 in Donostia-San Sebastian, Spain The EURON / EUROP Annual Meeting 2010 seeks to gather the robotics experts from both industry and academia to communicate, collaborate, and basically exchange ideas and information. The focus will be on taking up the challenges faced by both sides concerning the advancement of European Robotics and to explore solutions or present ideas to tackle them.

A variety of intriguing workshops will take place during the EURON / EUROP Annual Meeting. Registration is mandatory but free for all.

For more information regarding the agenda, description of the workshops, venue, registration, accommodation and all other details please refer to the event’s website: http://www.euron-europ-2010.eu

Present your state-of-the-art products at the EURON / EUROP Annual Meeting March 12, 2010 in Donostia-San Sebastian, Spain During the second day of the upcoming EURON / EUROP Annual Meeting (March 10-12) in San Sebastian, European robot manufacturers are asked to give an overview about their products.

Depending on the number of participating organisations we expect to have a time frame of about 10-15 minutes for each robot manufacturer to present its latest products and prototypes available for advanced application development and research. The target audience of this workshop is academia. 

If you would like to particpate in the workshop, please inform Rainer Bischoff (rainerbischoff@kuka-roboter.de).

The EURON / EUROP Annual Meeting is supported by the euRobotics Coordination Action funded by the 7th Framework Programme.

ECHORD - 2nd call for robotics equipment is open  Current call is relevant for robotics manufacturers only! Deadline - 12 March 2010, 5:00 p.m.

The objective of this call published on 16 February 2010 is to further complete the qualified equipment list. Manufacturers of robotics equipment are asked to submit offers for equipment in different categories (grouped by functionality and price range) that could be used later for the experiments. 

Please note: The robotic equipment which you submitted to the first quote will remain in the list of qualified equipment. In case you plan to submit new equipment or make modifications of the already submitted ones please contact Reinhard Lafrenz (lafrenz@in.tum.de) 

ECHORD (European Clearing House for Open Robotics Development) is an EC-funded project aiming to strengthen the cooperation between scientific research and industry in robotics. In the context of ECHORD, approximately 50 small-scale projects (12-18 months), so-called “experiments”, will be conducted, using state-of-the art robot equipment.

Further important dates concerning ECHORD: 

February 23, 2010: ECHORD Information Day in Toulouse, France
March 16, 2010: Publication of the 2nd call for experiments (targeting the "hyper-flexible manufacturing cells" scenario)
April 30, 2010: Deadline for the 2nd call for experiments  

For further information please see: http://www.echord.info/

New Commissioner for Robotics

The new European Commission has been formally approved by the European Parliament and took office as of February 10, 2010. Ms. Neelie Kroes was appointed as the new Commissioner for Digital Agenda responsible for the Directorate General Information Society and Media (INFSO) which includes Robotics. Ms. Neelie Kroes is the successor of Ms. Vivian Reding who was confirmed as the new Commissioner for Justice, Fundamental Rights and Citizenship. The EUROP community looks forward to a fruitful cooperation with the new Commissioner.

Update/upload your profile on the EUROP website

As mentioned before, it is of great importance for EUROP members to upload and update their information on the EUROP website. This will facilitate contact and networking opportunities between EUROP members and the robotics community as a whole.  

In the attached PDF please find the instructions to upload/update your organisation's profile as well as your profile as the contact person.

> How to upload/update your profile (PDF)
> Listing of EUROP members on the website

2010 Oporto International Film Festival celebrating robotics as their main theme 

The Oporto International Film Festival will be held on February 22 - March 6th in Oporto, Portugal. This year's theme will be celebrating Robotics and it includes a parallel set of activities involving the science and technology community. These activities will range from public talks from international and Portuguese researchers, robot demonstrations and public interaction events. Apart from a section showing robotics related movies, an exhibition of technical films will also be shown.

If your research group/laboratory/institution/company has technical films that can be publicly presented at these sessions and you are interested, please contact:

LSA - Autonomous Systems Laboratory
Instituto Superior de Engenharia do Porto
Portugal
tel: +351 22 8340500
email:  lsa@lsa.isep.ipp.pt