European Commission presents a new publication on Europe's position in research and innovation. The "Key figures 2007 on Science, Technology and Innovation" shows that R&D intensity (R&D expenditure as % of GDP) in Europe has stagnated since the mid-nineties, while major competitors such as Japan, China or South Korea have been able to increase substantially their R&D effort, shaping a world where knowledge is more evenly distributed than ever before. Moreover, the R&D investment deficit against the US has remained constant over recent years.

ePractice.eu is a portal created by the European Commission which offers a new service for the professional community of eGovernment, eInclusion and eHealth practitioners.

It is an interactive initiative that empowers its users to discuss and influence open government, policy-making and the way in which public administrations operate and deliver services.

In line with efforts to bring EU information closer to citizens, and improve access to funding, CORDIS is further extending its boundaries. Key pages of the CORDIS FP7 Service, the official access point to funding from the Seventh Framework Programme for research (FP7), are now available in six languages.

Users will be able to access pages linked to the homepage, and the individual programmes' homepages, not only in English, but also German, Spanish, French, Italian and Polish - all with a single click.

The European Commission has awarded a grant of EUR 2.9 million to the COBRED project.

Funded under the Sixth Framework Programme (FP6), the COBRED project will aim to find new biomarkers for two of the most common cancers: colon cancer and breast cancer.

NHS Direct is delighted to be part of the successful bid that will significantly improve the lives of Newham residents coping with long term conditions (LTCs) such as: diabetes, coronary heart disease, hypertension and Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD).

The Newham project is just one of three locations in England to share £12m to demonstrate the benefits of a telecare and telehealth programme.

As Europe pursues its goal of becoming the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world, it is seeking to develop the infrastructure needed to power the next generation of Grid technologies.

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 European Commission is now on the road to creating the first ever Europe-wide public-private partnerships to boost research and development, having adopted proposals for initiatives in two strategic industrial sectors.

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).