Grid technologies connect computers and scientific instruments, bringing together users from around the world and from different companies in a single, 'virtual' organisation. In turn, members of this virtual organisation can share knowledge instantly and easily access and store shared data.
The Commission presented two Joint Technology Initiatives (JTIs), worth approximately 5 billion, on embedded computing systems, to be known as ARTEMIS (Advanced Research and Technology for Embedded Intelligence and Systems), and on innovative medicines (Innovative Medicines Initiative).
The patient lies in the bore, keeping as still as he can - but he finds it very hard to remain immobile for so long. If he moves too much, he risks causing errors - known by experts as artifacts - in the magnetic resonance image.
The report, "The Atlas of Ideas", is the outcome of an 18-month study. It charts the rise of innovation in China, India and South Korea, and sets out four key recommendations on how the EU could best respond to the challenges posed by these countries.
Contributors saw a need for better information to patients to enable informed choices about cross-border care and greater clarity about the procedures to follow, with a broad consensus that quality and safety of healthcare should be ensured by the country where treatment is provided.
The increasing convergence of biology, medicine and genetics provides an opportunity to leverage synergies between the three areas for the benefit of health. Biology and genetics are emerging as information sciences while medicine is increasingly adopting information systems and informatics approaches to support healthcare delivery.