Association

The deadline for receiving applications for founding membership of the ECTN Association is 31st January 2002. Since a number of people have asked for a slight extension of the deadline to allow their application forms to pass through their administrative structures, I propose to accept completed application forms up to the 14 February 2002. Completed forms can be faxed to me at +33 472 43 17 29 (I will also need to receive the original form by post).
On 24 January I had already received forms from about 40% of those institutions invited to be founder members.

Don't forget the General Assembly of the Association will take place during the ECTN Plenary Meeting to be held in Perugia, Italy on 10 - 12 May 2002.
ECTN Working Group meetings will also take place in Perugia on 9 May 2002.

Administrative Council / Management Committee Meeting
Helsinki (FI), February 16, 2002

The agenda for this meeting is as follows :
To download it : ECTN_Prop_Agenda_Helsinki.doc (21Kb)

1.Welcome and Introduction

2.ECTN Association

• Approval of minutes of previous meeting
• Founding membership fees
• Insurance
• Task allocation
• Any other business

3.Up-date on ECTN activities

• 2000/2001 Final Report
• Grundvig Application
• International project application
• Report on TN coordinators meeting, Brussels, 24 January 2002
• Dissemination ?   ACS Bellingham, USA meeting
• E Chem Test
• FECS
• Grundvig 4 (EASK) project
• FACE Leonardo project
• Other Leonardo projects
• Working group activities
• Tuning Project

4.ECEN  (European Chemistry Exchange Network)

5.Plenary Meeting ? Perugia

• Organisation, accommodation, meals, conference rooms.
• Meeting timetable
• Invited speakers, participants, session chairpersons
• Funding

6.ECTN Re-application for 2002/2003 (Deadline March 1st 2002)

7.Any Other Business

If anyone has any comments to make or anything they would like discussed at this meeting, please send details to A.K. Smith by e-mail before 14 February 2002. In particular, suggestions for activities for the October 2002 - September 2003 funding period, are welcome.

Thematic Network Co-ordinators Meeting
Brussels (BE), January 24, 2002

At this recent meeting of the co-ordinators of all the thematic networks a large part of the time was devoted to administrative matters. There are a number of important changes in the way that Thematic Network projects will be administered by the European Commission and/or the Socrates Technical Assistance Office.
One important change is in the way that the projects will be assessed. In the past, the final report was evaluated essentially on a financial basis. In future, the evaluation of the final report will be based on the results obtained during the funding period. Final reports will be graded by external experts on a scale of 0 - 10.

• If a grading of 0 - 2 is obtained the full grant must be re-paid.
• If a grading of 3 - 4 is obtained, 50% of the lump sum for personnel costs must be repaid, but justified direct costs may be retained.
• If a grading of 5 - 10 is obtained, the full lump sum for personnel costs may be retained plus justified direct costs (travel, subsistence, equipment, sub-contracting and consultancy, and other costs).

The approved budget is no longer a percentage of the total project costs. The only restriction is that the total grant cannot be more than 75% of the total eligible costs. This is a welcome change. The pages and pages of financial data will be much reduced and much more emphasis will be put on what we actually do. It is now up to us all to ensure that we obtain a grading of least 5 out of 10. I will provide more detailed information about this and other changes to all the partner contacts in the near future.

At the meeting information was also provided about new applications for thematic networks. A total of 37 pre-proposals were submitted. Of these, 19 have been invited to submit a full proposal for the March 1st deadline. It is expected that about 10 of these proposals will be funded.
At present there are 8 Thematic Networks in the first year of their projects, 17 in their second year (including the ECTN), 1 in the third year, and 2 in a dissemination year. We must submit a renewal application for the 1st March 2002 deadline for funding for the third year of our project.

The Commission are looking for more synergies between projects (between Thematic Networks, and between TNs and other Erasmus/Socrates actions). There is also a move towards a greater association between education and research, and there will certainly be a number of initiatives linking these two, previously very separate, directorates of the European Commission. For example, cooperation between Thematic Networks and research networks that exist in many areas are to be encouraged.

Thanks to Marta Salisova who will provide the Slovakian version of the Demo Tests and the Internet pages.

Miltiades Karayanis (mkaragia@cc.uoi.gr), was sollicited for leading the Analytical Chemistry working group - thanks Milt and welcome on board !

No further notice this month about the progression of work (completion of the English version correction, and progress for the translation double checking). A status report will be issued after the Administrative Council meeting (February 16, 2002).

As a reminder,
in order to be eligible for the next issue of the CDRom, submission of the final version of all the tests, is due by :

March 31, 2002
Last deadline
No extra-delay allowed

International Project - Life Long Learning

The  project entitled : “Chemistry for Everyone. Formative Computer-based Tests for All Citizens”  submitted in September 2001, has not been funded. There were a total of 52 applications received by the Commission and only 6 were funded. Our project was very highly rated by the external experts, and was on the reserve list of projects should one of the first 6 be withdrawn. Many thanks to those of you who helped in the preparation of this application. Let us hope that there will be another chance to submit this project. The next call for proposals under the "International Cooperation" heading is likely to involve cooperation between Europe and japan. Watch this space!

Grundtvig 1 Project

For details of this pre-proposal please see the November 2001 newsletter.
News has just reached me (January 29, 2002) that our Grundtvig 1 pre-proposal has not been selected. I reproduce below the full comments from 'Expert 1' and some of the comments from 'Expert 2' on  the application:
 

EXPERT 1.
Not for adult education, rather regular university teaching.
Recommendations to the applicant: Distance and non-formal teaching for adults is missing. Less partners, who really need the support.

EXPERT 2.
Wide target groups - almost all citizens in the adult and young adult category outside those in HE. How will such populations be reached?
Objectives seem very general and ambitious. How will these tests actually contribute to an increase of learning about chemistry across Europe? Are tests the best way to increase interest in chemistry and learning about chemistry in the target population?
A quesion arises as to how 108 partners will be managed to develop a coherent project. How will the funding be divided among them?
A stronger rationale for the inclusion of 108 partners in a pilot project should be given and awareness of the challenges involved in working with such big numbers in a pilot project should be demonstrated.
A wide range of dissemination activities listed, but no dissemination plan as such.

The accompanying letter states "Neither the Commission nor the Technical Assistance Office can provide any further comments on this independent evaluation". Thus, having followed the advice/recommendations of the "independent experts" last year to "improve" our project, it seems that this years "independent experts" take a completely different view. One "expert" clearly dismisses the project because it is not for adult education, while the other "expert" implies that the project addresses too many people among the adult population and has too many partners.

I have not had time to consider the implications of this set back.
We clearly need to reflect very carefully on where we go from here to advance this very important project.

FACE Project

The first meeting of this project took place in Idstein, DE on 18 - 19 January 2002. It was attended on behalf of the ECTN by Anthony Smith.
The major activity of this three-year project will be to create a web-based data base of courses in chemistry that involve a compulsory period in industry.
The role of the ECTN in this project is mainly one of dissemination, but we can also provide contacts in those countries not represented in the project.
The project partners include a company specialising in data-base construction, IPE Scientific (headquarters in Dublin, but the partners for this project are based in Vienna), and a company specialising in web-site design (CIDEC, based in Barcelona) who will take the data-base and present it on the web. The other partners in the project are responsible for data input. These are : Europa Fachhochschule Fresenius, Idstein DE (the coordinators); the Catalan Foundation for Research, Barcelona; Czech Chemical Society; Higher Vocational School, Tarnow, Poland (Marek Frankowicz); Institut Quimica de Sarria, Barcelona; Jyvaskyla Polytechnique, Finland; Kudos Analytical, UK; Tallinn Technical University, Estonia; University of Southampton, UK (Tony Rest); Höhere Bundes-Lehr und Versuchsanstalt für Chem. Industrie, Vienna, Austria; and Sächsische Bildungsgesellschaft für Umweltschutz und Chemieberufe Dresden GmbH, Germany.

EChemTest.net

Checking the NewsLetter on-line item, you will now be able to access the worldwide dissemination page of the News, categorized by Society, Country and University. These lists includes ECTN members, non members and partners.

The NewsLetter attached-documents archive was also layed out differently to fit the space left on a large screen display.

Thanks to Bjorn Pedersen for checking the available Norwegian pages.

All the available pages of the website are almost completely updated, we hopefully will add some complements for the tests description, and then as soon as this stage will be completed, I will proceed to the publication of the website to the Internet search engines. Also, the counter reached now more than 850 hits, it means more than 200 hits in less that 2 month time - that's pretty good.

eask.be

Minor updates only. The Administrative Council meeting was held in Brussels (BE) on November 19, 2001. The meeting report was still not available at the time of edition.

Reminder ...

EuroChem 2002 - Toulouse, France

Deadline for subscription : March 31, 2002 - http://www.sfceurochem.org

17th BCCE - Bellingham (WA), USA

Deadline for subscription : February 28, 2002 - http://atom.chem.wwu.edu/acs/bcce/bcce2002.html

17th ICCE - Beijin, China

Deadline for Subscription : March 31, 2002 - http://www.ccs.ac.cn/17icce.htm

5th Session of the V.A.Fock School on Quantum and Computational Chemistry

Received from: Andrei L. Tchougreeff <wpcc@qcc.ru>

I am very pleased to inform you that the 5-th Session of the V.A. Fock School on Quantum and Computational Chemistry will be held 13 - 17 May 2002 in the Yaroslav the Wise University in Novgorod the Great - Russia.

The science specialization of the School: The application of modern concepts and computational methods of quantum chemistry to study of chemical, physical and biological problems. Working languages of the Meeting are English and Russian.

The requests for participation in the Meeting (also as a lecturer) must be transmitted by filling out the electronic form at : http://qcc.ru/~fock/ui/registration.htm

The organisers have reached an agreement with the Editorial Board of the International Journal of Quantum Chemistry (IJQC) on the publication of the Proceedings of this session. All the participants of the School are welcome to submit their contributions to the IJQC.

All information concerning the Meeting is located at the URL: http://qcc.ru/~fock/
 

Address:103064 , Moscow, Vorontsovo pole, 10
L.Y. Karpov Institute of Physical Chemistry.
To: Dr. A.L. Tchougreeff.
Tel: +7-(095)-917-3903 ext. 1-15
Fax: +7-(095)-975-2450
E-mail: fock@qcc.ru

Flying "Alitalia" ...

For the frequent flyers, the Italian flag "Alitalia" joined the AirFrance / SkyTeam Programme.
Further details and Miles programme information are available at : www.airfrance.fr and www.alitalia.it .

Report of the Administrative Council and Management Committee meeting (Helsinki, February 16, 2002).

News about the ECTN Plenary Meeting, Perugia, Italy, 10 - 12 May 2002.