North Sea Region Programme

Annual Conference 2010 Pre-Announcement

The Joint Annual Conference 2010 will take place 16-17 June in Stavanger, Norway. The event will be arranged jointly with the North Sea Commission and feature a more integrated conference than previous years.

The conference
It will be a two day event starting at lunch Wednesday 16 June and finishing in the afternoon of the 17 June.

18 June - Adjacent Project Development Seminar
A Project Development Seminar in preparation for the 6th Call for Applications will be held adjacent to the conference on Friday 18 June.

Project developers who are planning to submit an application at this time are encouraged to use this opportunity to discuss their idea with the Secretariat. Please contact the Project Development Unit of the Secretariat no later than X XX to schedule an individual session at the seminar.

Theme and background
The theme for the Annual Conference 2010 is: Towards 2020 - A strategic perspective on the future of NSR

More information about the event and theme of the Annual Conference 2010 can be found in the background paper.

Venue, Accomodation and practicalities
The venue is X, Stavanger.

Accomodation can be booked through the

NMU Pilot Course

Lecturers were Prof Dr Thomas Pawlik and Susanne Neumann (Bremen University of Applied Sciences, Germany), Prof Erik Fridell (IVL Swedish Environmental Research Institute, Gothenburg) and Matthias Hahn (Kiel University of Applied Sciences).

The concerning E-learning sessions will be held in the time from March 10th to 17th.

Next to an overview and in depth insight into the subject of all types of ship emissions, the MT&E module also offers theory and practical evidence of ways to manage these. Starting with laws and regulations, technical approaches, managerial concepts and process innovations are covered as well as technological innovations and improvements.

To learn more about the NMU’s offering of “Maritime Transport & the Environment” please contact Ms Susanne Neumann (susanne.neumann@hs-bremen.de) or Prof Erik Fridell (erik.fridell@ivl.se).

New video on EU service list

What is a service list, what are the benefits and what are we doing in the Smart Cities project?

Sheila Apicella (Porism & esd toolkit) talks about services, service lists and the Smart Cities EU service list project. See www.smartcities.info/video

Contract Agent Design - Invitation to Submit Quotation

Relevant professionals are hereby invited to submit a quotation for a design contract for the North Sea Region Programme.

Background information and details can be found in the Quotation Document.

Deadline to submit quotations is Friday 11 March 2010.

AC 2010 Video Production - Invitation to Submit Quotation

Relevant professionals are hereby invited to submit a quotation for a short term contract regarding the production of a number of videos / news reels including video diaries at the Annual Conference on 16-17 June 2010.

Background information and details can be found in the Quotation Document.

Deadline to submit quotations is Friday 11 March 2010.

Updated FAQ Online

The Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) on the Programme website has been revised and updated.

The FAQ inform about the main aspects of the Programme – from background information about the Programme to the application procedure and implementation of running projects.

Users have the possibility to suggest additional questions through the “Suggest a question” function in the FAQ section.

5th Call for Applications Open

The fifth Call for Applications is now open. It is open for all four priorities and all areas of intervention.

The call will run until and including Wednesday 7 April. Both the online and the signed paper versions of the application form must be submitted within the deadline.

Application materials
All relevant information concerning the call and the application procedure can be found in the Application Pack.

Please note that as long as the call is open only technical questions can be answered by the Secretariat.

Download the Application Pack and access the online application system here.

Epractice publishes first Smart Cities research brief

This report describes techniques of customer profiling to help target the delivery of services in the public sector. The approach set out in this report relies on use of standard definitions of customer profiles, services and channels. It gives preliminary results from work performed in the UK and describes some advantages and shortfalls of the approach.

More: http://www.epractice.eu/en/library/307651

Revised Fact Sheets Online

The revised Fact Sheets approved at Monitoring Committee No 5 are now available online. Changes have been made to Fact Sheet 2, 5, 7, 14 and 15.

No 2 Eligible Costs
No 5 Lead Beneficiary Principle
No 7 Public-Private Partnerships
No 14 Publicity Requirements
No 15 Preparation Costs

The Fact Sheets can be found in the Document Library and in relevant sections of the Project Life Cycle.

A set of Fact Sheets with track changes are also available in the Document Library, to make it easier to check what changes have been approved. Version with track changes can be found here.

NS FRITS Addresses Transport Security

On Wednesday 17th February 2010, NS FRITS hosted the fourth stakeholder seminar at the Golden Tulip hotel, Rotterdam, the Netherlands. All presentations are available on the NS FRITS website www.nsfrits.eu

The seminar looked at the varying ways of improving transport security transnationally and exploring the connection between transport security and NS FRITS.

David Ransom, Chief Executive of People United Against Crime (PUAC), the lead partner of the NS FRITS project, opened with an overview of NS FRITS highlighting the current position and the identified future steps.

Ad Hellemons, Director of TISPOL and AQUAPOL, introduced the need for improving transport security and was very well received by the 53 attending delegates.

This was followed by Professor Bob Hoogenboom's non-governmental approach to transport crime, which challenged the public sector thinking and methodology in tackling transport crime.

One delegate described Ad Hellemons and Bob Hoogenboom's presentations as "outstanding".

Rainer Muller from the Institute of Shipping, Economics and Logistics (ISL) presented Project Integrity which is based at the Port of Bremerhaven, Germany and is a key collaborator with NS FRITS.

After the lunch break Carlo Lautenschlager, KLPD, demonstrated the Transport Document System (TDS) who is a secured data provider to NS FRITS. TDS informs the users of the transport documentation needed for differing forms of cross border travel between EU member states. For further information on TDS please email info@nsfrits.eu

Chief Inspector Henk Graafland, KLPD, explored the possibilities of vehicle tracking and tracing.

Gerrit Schinkel of Wolters & Kluwer gave an overview of the freight acquisition programme Teleroute.

The final speaker was Hélène Minderman who showed the approach to transport security by Transport en Logistiek Nederland (TLN).

The seminar was well received by the range of delegates some of who described it as:

A "highly successful event, well attended - well done!"
"Good first impression of NS FRITS"
"Most informative - promoted some interesting ideas with scope for future development and further discussion"