Fp7: Energy (Finland)

Contact

Martine BONNAURE-MALLET, Professor and Research Director
University of Rennes 1, Lab. Microbiology, EA 1254 "Sciences Médicales, Pharmaceutiques and Odontologiques", Campus Villejean, Bat. 6, 35043 Rennes, France
[e-mail]
FP7: Health (Finland, 05.03.)

Funding Source/Programme

FP7, Health

Description

Seinäjoki University of Applied Sciences and University of Turku from Finland are looking for partners (universities and research institutions) from all EU-countries  to the multidisciplinary  project: “ Optimizing research on end of life care of cancer patient”.

The aim of the project is:

1) to study and compare approaches in Europe and exchange experiences and best practices on research for end of life care for cancer patient:

-  e.g. signs and symptoms of approaching death, needs assessment, palliative care, quality of care,  psychological and psychosocial support to patients, families and caretakers, end of life decisions, complementary comfort care and voluntary work

2) to found a network for researchers interested in end of life questions in cancer care, start regular meetings between them, organize education in research methodology for them and start to plan research program for the network

3) to organize one international conference on the end of life theme during the project 

The Call is open until the 30th of March, 2007.

Contact

Merja Kuuppelomäki,
Director, PhD, Associate professor,
Research and Development Centre for Social Welfare and Health,
Seinäjoki University of Applied Sciences,
Tel. [phone], fax [phone],
Email: [e-mail]
FP7: Regions of Knowledge (Switzerland, 07.03.)

Funding Source/Programme

Coordination and Support Action
Regions of Knowledge

Description

Draft for a project within the UNESCO Biosphere Entlebuch as a call for participants

New perspectives for local players in rural landscapes by enhancing sustainable energy production and minimizing carbon outflow in rural environments with integrated measures on local, regional and national level

 
Main focus:

The new Swiss agricultural policy (Agrarpolitik (AP) 2011, 2005) imposes on agriculture a higher competitiveness and a stepwise approach to European conditions. According to AP 2011 and WTO negotiations, Switzerland is obliged to cut back tariffs, reduce product-bound internal measures of support and on a medium and long-term, phase out any form of export aid. These measures are going to decrease the income of Swiss farmers, as Swiss agriculture is characterised by small-scale structures working with small herds in a high-cost context.

The rural conditions in UNESCO Biosphere Entlebuch offer possibilities to analyse and improve various strategies of sustainable energy production as an additive component in farmer’s income. Active climate protection on landscape level is implemented with the bogprotection activities. On the other hand a forestry producing energy wood and other sustainable energy production activities (e.g. windmills, biomass) reduce emissions. Because of the diversification of all these activities on several players the climate-protection performance is currently not as strong as it can be. The running bottom-up-processes in UNESCO Biosphere Entlebuch are able to maintain powerful alliances between landscape and biotope protection, timber chains, traditional rural activities, and sustainable energy production. The optimisation processes in the different sectors can lead to a general example of harmonized regional climate protection strategy in a rural landscape supported by a participative policy on local, regional and national level. A great advantage will be to analyse this component in its impact on farmer’s income under changing frame conditions depending to the EU-harmonisation processes of Swiss agricultural policy.

Objectives:

• 
  Are the proposed measures really sustainable and/or are there more and less sustainable measures?
  
• 
  What influence does the economical power of a region have on the development of agriculture?
  
• 
  How can knowledge regions with a high value on biotope and landscape level (nature conservation parks and/or biosphere reserves) sustainable developed in these changes?
  
• 
  How can policy measures on various levels be translated into sustainable action in these knowledge regions?
  
• 
  Optimisation of timber chains in case of submitting fuel (“Holzschnitzel”)
  
• 
  Managing damaged forest area in case of revitalisation of protection functions together with increasing woody mass production
  
• 
  Optimisation of local energy flow processes, distribution chain of local energy sources
  
• 
  Possibilities of alpine pastures and production of biogas/biomass
  

Short description of our project region

The study area is situated in the northern foothills of the Swiss Alps and exposed to a suboceanic climate. The bedrock is calcareous. The Entlebuch UNESCO Biosphere Reserve consists of 42% of forest, 30% of agricultural area, 18% of alpine zone, 3 % settlement zone and 7 % of non-productive area. Due to its topography, soil, climate and remoteness, the Entlebuch has sub-optimal site qualities with respect to agriculture, industry and trade.

Extended bogs are covering parts of the upper valleys. Nevertheless 76 % of the 1026 farms are full-time holdings; 39% of working population works in the first sector. The total extension of the Biosphere Reserve is about 400 square kilometres. Depending on the needs of a project application, an extension of the region to the Central Swiss Canton of Lucerne may be envisaged.

Researching Competence

Dr. Pius Hofstetter took his degree in animal science at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich. Today he works as instructor and extension officer of animal science and economics at the LBBZ, a regional business school for agriculture and land-use management. He is specialized on the conversation of traditional stocks of domestic animals.

His responsibility in the Biosphere reserve is the sustainable development of the regional agriculture. His experience in research and development projects was used in the EU-funded LACOPE- Project (www.lacope.net), in which he figured as member of the Swiss participant group.

Dr. Thomas Coch studied forestry at the University of Friburg (SW-Germany) and made his PhD with investigations on possibilities of revitalising coppice-with-standards oak forests – today protected under the FFH-Directive. Between 1999 and 2006 he worked as Senior Researcher at ETH Zurich (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology - Chair of Nature and Landscape Protection). During this time he figured as group leader of the Swiss partnership in two EU-FAIR-Projects (MNTFR (Monitoring of non-timber forest resources based on indicators assessed in various data sources – EU-FAIR CT 98 4045) and DMMD (Monitoring Forest Biodiversity as a contribution to sustainable forest management) and worked together with teams from Finland, Sweden, Italy and Germany.