http://bit.ly/Horizon2020_Proposal

It is also possible to access four other official documents pertaining to the process of implementing Horizon 2020 as the successor to FP7 at http://bit.ly/Horizon2020

The theme of the Lab is “Outcome Mapping: Learning to Adapt”, exploring how the system is being adapted for different uses and contexts, identifying the challenges often faced in M&E and working through to solutions.

Thinking and practice has evolved significantly over the 10 years since Outcome Mapping began making a contribution to planning, monitoring and evaluating social change interventions. Managers and evaluators have expanded their use of approaches that recognize and respond to the complexity often encountered by initiatives seeking behavioural change.

To document these innovations and to improve their understanding of how to support sustainable improvements in human and ecological well-being, the Outcome Mapping Learning Community is hosting this four-day laboratory where experienced and innovative practitioners can share knowledge and work together to bring new approaches to monitoring and evaluation to the surface.

This event takes OM learning up a notch; going beyond basic training and the presentation of papers. Facilitated learning sessions will explore successes and challenges in Outcome Mapping applications around the world.

Keynote speakers will raise questions about current M&E practice and how OM fits with emerging approaches. Designed to foster creative and practical thinking, facilitated working group sessions will be combined with plenary discussions, presentations and debate to provide participants with new ways of thinking and acting relevant to their own working environments.

Interested parties can take advantage of the early-bird discount by booking before 18 November 2011. For more information and to register, visit the OM Lab 2012 website: 
http://lab.outcomemapping.ca or contact omlab.2012@gmail.com.

Chosen as a location with an environment known for the high quality of life, architectural achievements, accomplishments in sustainable development and social cohesion, the Summit will offer an opportunity to reflect on an appropriate model under the title The European urban fabric in the 21st century.

As with previous editions, mayors of cities and presidents of regions are invited to voice their views on the many challenges they face and to present some of their practical solutions and innovative approaches during the debates in various workshops and the accompanying exhibition Beautiful, green, smart and inclusive: colourful cities.

The debates will look into how urban and multilevel governance of EU policies and strategies could be further developed in the years to come with the aim of demonstrating the key role of cities and regions in designing and implementing sustainable models of development.

Several weeks ahead of the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (“Rio+20″), the Committee of the Regions in Brussels is seeking to showcase best local and regional practices, as well as a strong political commitment to the issues concerning urban development.

The aim is for the conference to have a significant impact on the EU’s position at the UN conference in Rio during the first week of June 2012.

This follows the CoR’s 9th OPEN DAYS, Investing in Europe’s future: Regions and cities delivering smart, sustainable and inclusive growth, which was held in October 2011.

The event addressed the debate on the European Commission’s legislative proposals for cohesion policy post-2013 and the budget debate in the Council and the European Parliament about size, duration and priorities of the forthcoming Multi-annual Financial Framework.

This happened against the backdrop of continued efforts at all levels of governance to exit the financial and economic crisis and the 2nd year of implementation of the ‘Europe 2020′ strategy. The latter influencing the meeting’s discussions about the objectives of the new generation of cohesion policy programmes.

This was sent in line with the initiative coming from the e-Science Forum for a Strategic Plan for the UK Research Computing Ecosystem.

http://bit.ly/Hawking-HPC

While it is natural that Stephen Hawking would wish to support the initiative, surely one cannot over-estimate the value of this in taking the time to state his support.

As mentioned previously in ‘Insight‘, Peter Coveney met with David Willetts on this very subject on Wednesday 13 July.

On 8 July, the Town Meeting – referred to in the previous “Industrial Relations in Plans for Research Computing” post – looked to put the final touches to a Strategic Plan for the UK Research Computing Ecosystem. It was very well attended, only underlining the urgency felt by researchers for this issue to move forward.

Before the Town Meeting, there were still inevitable questions. From Searchlighter’s point of view, one concerned the balance of the stakeholders declaring an interest in this issue being able to cover all the bases on what is required in any infrastructure of this kind. Is the engagement of a kind that the issue demands?

Well, the briefing presentations in the morning offered insight from many different stakeholder perspectives, and the feedback in the afternoon was wide-ranging, both answering our question very well.

A supplement to this issue concerns this breadth of engagement constituting itself in a manner to secure enough of a ‘bottom-up’ perspective to balance out the ‘top-down’ pressure from any agencies that may be funding the infrastructure required.

Neil Chue Hong in his consideration of software made a good case for avoiding the control sought by certain governments that feel they know best as this could strangle creativity in areas such as application development. Facilitating small-scale innovation is surely one of the aims of any strategy, something that can secure its sustainability.

For this computer-based ‘ecosystem’ to prosper and sustain itself, it is obvious that it must evolve over time, adapting to new technologies efficiently and facilitating the kind of innovation that lies at the heart of successful research. If this evolution could be left to itself, there would be no need for any strategic plan, and this was readily acknowledged by protagonists at the Town Meeting

The communications framework that can provide the feedback loops have broken down into the ‘silos’ that are currently hampering the kinds of collaboration that is being sought for UK research. Searchlighter is highly encouraged that this has been acknowledged as an important issue to be addressed in the context of the strategy being proposed.

This commitment is a vital part of the engine that can make the Plan viable: if this can be addressed appropriately in the context of a balanced, interactive approach between any bottom-up/top-down options, it can offer input across all stakeholder groups, including users, that is valid and valuable.

Are users ‘first among equals’? Does it undermine the currency of this initiative if it is seen to be too close to industry when lobbying?

Lobbying is clearly an important part of the process to implement the Strategic Plan: the executive people that hold purse-strings need to be persuaded that this is a priority. So, can the Board that produced the plan collectively hit the right buttons with government ministers, industry executives and research funding decision-makers?

This question is going to be tested in quick time as a meeting is taking place at BIS with David Willetts on July 13 when the Strategic Plan is presented – what is more, at the request of the Government. Can the community hit the right buttons?

Searchlighter hopes that there is visible reference in the document on the role of industry as a stakeholder in any research computing ecosystem. We feel sure this will be a touchstone for the Government, but also that industry is a key ally in implementing the Plan

The lobbying process is sure to be vital as a means to ensure the resources are there to invest so that any computational ‘ecosystem’ sustains the quality of research that is crucial to the foundations of the UK economy.

Good luck to Peter Coveney and all his colleagues when he makes the case this week.

This was an opportunity for JISC Involve to invite the participants at the core of the work to present their thoughts, for there to be a launch of the Discovery site, ready for Phase 2 of the project, with the newly drafted Open Metadata Principles prominent to coincide with their launch at this conference. While the day was self-contained, my week as a whole had also given me a useful introduction.

The day before, I attended another event, hosted by Mobile VCE as a workshop on future business models for mobile environments. It became apparent that the stakeholders in the development of these environments had all seen quite quickly that old rules and old models for sustaining innovation and business were just not applicable anymore, and had to be ripped to shreds so that new answers could be found, so that collaborators, colleagues, competitors and ‘enemies’ alike could see where the opportunities lay – to the long-term advantage of everyone.

It is striking as to how this has not happened among the stakeholders in research, teaching and learning. It often feels that there is a surfeit of self-congratulation for dealing with all the challenges of recent years, and not quite enough examination as to where the opportunities are to be truly innovative in applying new rules in areas like IPR that apply to the communications environment of today and tomorrow.

To some extent, this acted as an introduction to the Discovery day, allowing me to be especially struck by the words of Peter Murray-Rust; I am pretty sure I was not alone. He is one of the very few bridges between the JISC’s world of strategies representing HEI futures and the lab-based researchers who slog away at the day-to-day work of results.

As ever, he pulled no punches – it would be a shock if he ever did – and left the audience in no doubt as to where researchers loyalties lie – to their field or subject area, and to their peers. No great shock there. but then he connected this to the energy that early post-doctorate researchers are able to generate today in a spirit akin to Wikimedia, allowing them to ‘crowdsource’ collected metadata without needing to reference any shiny new Open Metadata Principles as the generation born in the mid-1980s would not be able to conceive of doing it in any other way.

Could this be a touchstone for the stakeholders in research, teaching and learning to believe in innovation rather than dealing with it or feeling it is a necessary evil? It is actually hard to know. However, I left with a feeling the innovations that have taken place are already in the bloodstream of the emerging generation of researchers, many of whom could be highly influential in research funding in the not too distant future. That has to be incredibly significant for future models concerning innovation and adaptation in discovery, access and dissemination. It may be that there will only be roles for those who feel the online environments by instinct.

Perhaps it will be just a few years before the Principles, for which JISC are urgently seeking signatories in 2011, will need an introductory line of ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident’. However, even the most self-evident of truths require statement, if ultimately they are read to remind people in future generations that there was a time when they needed to be stated.

It is hard to dismiss. While other countries are rushing ahead for the ordinary consumer, the UK has the fastest speeds at the heart of research and education.

At the same time, we have to wonder about the future when another story is emerging that the Government might take the cuffs off HEI admissions. There seems to be real consideration being given for Universities in the UK to admit ‘additional’ students, over and above the allocation, that can pay for their places and maintenance without troubling the public purse – and in many cases not exactly troubling their parents’ wallet either…

There is a fair amount of creative thinking going on in the face of the economic challenges clearly. How can anyone argue against 100Gbit/s? However, who will be tomorrow’s researchers using the system for its true purpose – to transfer database information rather than access an image for a primary school project?

We are reminded of the never-ending issue surrounding digital literacy with acknowledgement through a recent issue of JISC Inform that ‘there is poor support for learners’ developing strategies to make effective use of technologies for learning’. Infrastructure is one thing, but how certain can we be of this investment continuing?

I sense there will be quite a few people who feel they know how this all fits together for our HE and FE institutions, though I suspect there will be hardly any consensus among them.

Background

The professional role of nurses is changing throughout the EU: there is more demand for qualifications that go beyond the traditional medical skills, as more nurses are required to play managerial roles at medical institutions. RENOVA proposes that the provision of an adequate educational framework for this professional group would enhance its labour mobility and raise the profile for related educational institutions.

Objective

RENOVA carries the subtitle A knowledge transfer and framework construction for nursing staff across Europe to develop professional skills as Managers. The aim of this Transfer of Innovation (TOI) Action is to support improvements in both quality and innovation in Vocational and Educational Training (VET) systems and practices, and to enhance the mobility of staff for the benefit of health organisations and their personnel. To this end, the project supports experienced nursing staff in acquiring skills and qualifications natural to their professional development into health management.

Approach

RENOVA is looking to develop materials for project-based learning where students make things collectively, tackling real problems under the guidance of experienced practitioners, sharing ideas and working in teams, where tutoring helps students to reflect on their objectives and assumptions, where lecturing felicitously completes learning by giving students the knowledge they need to perform the core activities of their work or interests.

Jobs and Growth

Allowing nursing professionals to develop as managers through the project addresses the need to invest in the right skills and improve the matching of jobs with these skills in the EU. RENOVA is committed to develop professional skills among nursing staff accordingly to labour market needs as set out in the ‘New Skills for New Jobs‘ directive. Especially in new-entrant countries, nursing professionals are in an ideal position to benefit from the aims of the directive with its focus on labour-market development, one that guides RENOVA.

Equal Opportunities

The choice to focus on a profession where there is a preponderance of women allows the project to address issues concerning equality between men and women in their access to professions with authority and status, confronting sexual discrimination that hinders women making progress in their line of work. Management positions offer a challenge to disempowerment, and the partners consider that can be increased effectiveness in the provision of accessible management training for nurses.

Partnership

The consortium gathers partners from four different EU countries – Romania, Poland, UK and France – bringing different economic and cultural experiences that balance the RENOVA objectives. The British and French partners have access to a professional management training culture that has to an extent enabled women while the Polish and Romanian partners have access to nursing professionals that are in an ideal position to benefit from this project-based learning for their development. Partners bring complementary experience to the project, ranging from education and training, health, research and communications, technical training and software development skills for effective VET, being bound together by their collective understanding of the social issues the project is addressing.

Work Programme

TOI projects are commissioned to improve the quality and attractiveness of VET in participating countries by transferring innovations to new legal, systemic, sector, linguistic, socio-cultural and geographic environments. This is achieved by working with transnational partners to generate synergies through the exploitation of current VET innovations. RENOVA is based within the Leonardo da Vinci sub-programme for vocational education and training as a part of the European Commission’s Lifelong Learning Programme.