Research WG kicks off its activities

Composed by 26 members from both industry and academia, the Research WG aims to promote in silico medicine in EU research policy, acting as a consultative group that will provide technical/detailed scientific inputs into policy and fostering mutually beneficial links between Avicenna industry members and VPHi members.

In 2017, the group will focus on the following main activities:

• Proactively providing recommendations to the Commission on Horizon 2020 Work Programmes
• Inputs from the WG members are currently getting collected, but also the VPHi membership at large will be able to review the research priorities once identified.

• Contributing to the FET flagship proposal
  
• A FET Flagship call is being prepared in Brussels under DG Connect. The winners will each receive 100 million Euro/year over ten years (50% EU, 50% national funding). Health is most likely to be one of the topics targeted by the call. As a first step, EU will fund 4 to 6 projects that will be provided ample money to write up a full FET Flagship proposal. Among these finalists, two projects will be picked. The process of writing a proposal of this scope alone would have a very positive effect on the development of the VPHI/Avicenna endeavour.

• Rolling out the Avicenna Work Placement Programme

  • This programme seeks to facilitate that students from VPHi member organizations undertake internships at Avicenna Alliance industry members’ premises (e.g. Ansys and University of Leuven/Liege). The rationale being that an internship mechanism is very instrumental for establishing close links between the Avicenna Alliance industry members and the VPHi research members.

• Acting as a consultative body for scientific/technical in silico issues

All VPHi and Avicenna members are welcome to participate to the activities of this working group. In case you're interested to join please contact the VPHi manager