The Big Six – Spotlight on the EU-Flagship-Initiative

«Large, ambitious research initiatives with visionary objectives» – this is how the European Commission describes future flagship projects. Two of these large research networks are expected to start in 2013 and will be financed by up to EUR 100 million per year for a period of at least ten years.

The final decisions are planned for the second half of 2012. Currently six projects are still in the running. Switzerland is very involved in this process as three of the projects are headed by a researcher working in Switzerland and Swiss researchers are prominent participants in two of the other projects. The Swiss Academy of Sciences has decided to use this opportunity to start an information series: What are the objectives of the projects? How are they structured? How should they be integrated in existing research activities?

The Academy will organise events for the following flagship candidates:

HBP - The Human Brain Project
Event of the swiss-academies «Perspectives of High Power Computing in Neurosciences» (January 20, 2012)
EU-Webiste of the project

Graphene Flagship
Event of the swiss-academies «Exploring the Potential of Graphene» (March 8, 2012)
EU-Website of the project

ITFoM - IT Future of Medicine innovation
Event of the swiss-academies «Medicine in the 21st century: IT as a magic bullet?» (March 16, 2012)
EU-Website of the project

FuturICT - Participatory Computing for our Complex World
Event of the swiss-academies «Participatory Computing for our Complex World» (March 21, 2012)
EU-Website of the project

Guardian Angels for a smarter life
Event of the swiss-academies «Guardian Angels for a Smarter Life – innovations enabled by Zero-Power technologies» (April 17, 2012)
EU-Website of the project

RoboCom - Robot Companions for Citizens
Event of the swiss-academies «Rise of Sentient Machines? Robot Companions for Citizens» (May 22, 2012)
EU-Website of the project