Information Day on the European call for proposals “Collective Awareness Platforms”

The Institute for Informatics and Telematics of the Italian National Research Council is hosting an information day of the “Collective Awareness Platforms for Sustainability and Social Innovation” (CAPS) initiative, which will provide funding for research in the region of 15M Euros, within call 10 of the work programme 2013 of the EU ICT programme. 

The Collective Awareness Platforms for Sustainability and Social Innovation (CAPS) are ICT systems that use the emerging "network effect" by combining open online social media, distributed knowledge creation and data from real environments (Internet of Things), in order to create new forms of social innovation. They are expected to support environmentally aware, grassroots processes and practices to share knowledge, to achieve changes in lifestyle, production and consumption patterns, and to set up more participatory democratic processes.

The distributed situational awareness enabled by such platforms can then have concrete impacts, for instance in empowering (and motivating) citizens to make informed decisions and consumer choices, in real time, fostering collective environmentally-savvy behavioral changes and a more direct democratic participation. These platforms would be collective tools of social innovation, to design new visions of sustainable societies and environmentally sound solutions.

The CAPS program seeks participation from all technical and humanistic disciplines which can potentially contribute to such techno-social developments: not limited to computer science or telecommunications, but actively involving social media, sociology, anthropology, economy, law, biology, art. 

From a methodological standpoint, the CAPS program will thus proceed in cooperation with the Internet Science initiative launched in Call 7 of the FP7 (http://cordis.europa.eu/fp7/ict/fire/internet-science_en.html) and currently explored by the FP7 EINS Project (Network of Excellence in Internet Science, http://www.internet-science.eu).

The call, that is expected to be published in July, will accommodate proposals of any size, ranging from individuals or small entrepreneurs, up to NGOs, civil society organisations and larger European consortia.

The information day is the fourth event in Europe for this programme and it is open to anyone free of charge upon registration (up to the maximum number of admitted participants).

During the information day there will be the opportunity to meet directly with the responsible of the programme from the European Commission, to develop and publicly discuss ideas and proposals and to find contacts from other institutions, disciplines and sectors.  

The event will feature presentations of Fabrizio Sestini, EU officer, Filippo Addarii, Executive Director, Euclid Network, UK, Fausto Giunchiglia, Professor & Head of the ICT Department, University of Trento, Italy, and Roger M. Whitaker, , Professor & Head of the School of Computer Science and Informatics, Cardiff University, UK.

 

You can read more about Collective Awareness Platforms for Sustainability and Social Innovation (CAPS) on the European Commission website: http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/activities/collectiveawareness/index_en.htm