• Funding is spread across the Member States and regions, in particular those where economic development is less advanced.
• It is a key element of the EU's 2020 strategy for Growth and Jobs targeted at improving the lives of EU citizens by giving them better skills and better job prospects.
• Over the period 2007-2013 some €75 billion will be distributed to the EU Member States and regions to achieve its goals.

• Increasing adaptability of workers and enterprises;
• Increasing access to employment and participation in the labour market;
• Reinforcing social inclusion by fighting discrimination and facilitating access to the labour market for disadvantaged people;
• Promoting partnership for reform in the fields of employment and inclusion.

• investment in human capital, in particular by improving education and training systems;
• action aimed at developing institutional capacity and the efficiency of public administrations, at national, regional and local level.

Europa.eu is the official website of the European Union. It is a good starting point if you are looking for information and services provided by the EU but you don't know your way around our sites.

This site gives you:

• basic information on how the EU works
• the latest EU news and events
• links to EU information on the websites of EU institutions and agencies.

The site is run by the Communication department of the European Commission on behalf of the EU institutions.

This site is designed to help you find out about European Research. Whether you are a researcher or a teacher, in business or in politics, there is something for you here. You can read about the latest political decisions, or the latest advances in research; there is even a set of online leaflets about European Research in Action, written for the non-specialist and available in 11 or more languages.

Although the site has over 25 000 pages you can easily find the parts that interest you most by using the Who are you? section (in the column on the left) where you will find pages of links that we believe you would like to visit depending on who you are.

Alternatively you can Search the site, use the extensive keyword Index, or take a look at all the available sub sites in the Site Map.

If you have questions, you can try the FAQs or submit a new question to the Enquiries service, where you are guaranteed an answer.

The menu at the top of the page will take you quickly to specific sites for the current and previous Research Framework Programmes, to policy-related sites, and to pages providing news and information.

For more on how to navigate the site, you can also take the Guided tour.

The National Authority for Scientific Research has an informative role as main element in carrying out the research policy for the researchers to be better informed in order to reach effectively the research objectives. Also, the information process aims to provide a better and more effective dissemination of technological and scientific results and to promote science for citizens’ benefit, according to the principles of information transparency.

One of the components of the National Authority for Scientific Research’s mission is the communication with both the other structures of public administration and the citizens. The Authority is responsible for

• disseminating the information in the research-development and innovation field;
• stimulating the increase of public consciousness regarding the role played by the research-development and innovation in the process of developing the sustainable development;
• stimulating and editing, printing and publishing specific materials related to this field of activity.

CORDIS, the Community Research and Development Information Service for Science, Research and Development, is the official source of information on the seventh framework programme (FP7) calls for proposals; it offers interactive web facilities that links together researchers, policymakers, managers and key players in the field of research.

CORDIS has these main missions:

1. To facilitate participation in European Research activities;
2. To enhance exploitation of research results with an emphasis on sectors crucial to Europe's competitiveness;
3. To promote the dissemination of knowledge fostering the innovation performance of enterprise and the societal acceptance of new technology.

CORDIS is managed by the Publications Office.

For more information on CORDIS, please visit cordis.europa.eu/guidance/welcome_en.html

The use of the online services of CORDIS is free-of-charge; you only need to cover your telecommunication costs.

• the number of alumni and staff winning Nobel Prizes and Fields Medals,
• the number of highly cited researchers selected by Thomson Scientific,
• the number of articles published in journals of Nature and Science,
• the number of articles indexed in Science Citation Index - Expanded and Social Sciences Citation Index,
• and per capita performance with respect to the size of an institution.

The Webometrics Ranking of World Universities, also known as Ranking Web of World Universities, is ranking system for the world's universities based on a composite indicator that takes into account both the volume of the Web contents (number of web pages and files) and the visibility and impact of these web publications according to the number of external inlinks (site citations) they received.

The ranking is published by the Cybermetrics Lab, a research group of the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) located in Madrid.

The aim of the Ranking is to improve the presence of the academic and research institutions on the Web and to promote the open access publication of scientific results. The ranking started in 2004 and is updated every January and July. Today it provides Web indicators for more than 20,000 Higher Education Institutions worldwide.