EContentplus: Funding for Internet tasks

Funding is now available for projects making use of the Internet. The European Commission has issued the first call for proposals under the new eContentplus Programme, which aims to improve the creation and reuse of high quality digital content in Europe, and the Safer Internet Plus scheme, which aims to ensure that all parents and teachers are equipped with high quality Internet safety tools.

Projects eligible for funding under the eContentplus programme include those in the Following areas:

• Geographic information, eContentplus will stimulate the aggregation of existing national datasets into cross border datasets, which will serve to underpin new information services and products.
• Educational content, the programme will support the emergence of adequate information infrastructure, and encourage the use of open standards to stimulate the deployment of effective pan-European learning services.
• Cultural content, scientific information and scholarly content, eContentplus will support the development of interoperable collections and objects from cultural institutions (archives, libraries and museums…), and solutions to facilitate exposure, discovery and retrieval of these resources.
• public sector information, including that provided by local authorities; and
• reinforcing cooperation between digital content stakeholders.

The total budget available is €26.6 million and the call is open to legal entities in the 25 EU Member States plus Bulgaria, Croatia, Romania and Turkey. Proposals can be submitted online or by post.

The deadline for submissions is 24 November.

The text of the call for proposals, along with the key documents, is available online at:
http://europa.eu.int/information_society/activities/econtentplus/index_en.htm