Dear Colleague,
I have had representation from Professor Remy Bossu, the Secretary General of the European-Mediterranean Seismological Centre and Torild Van Eck of ORFEUS, concerning the current status of the European Commission FP7 programme, which is due to come on stream following FP6, which is due to end in 2006. (Forgive me if you have also received their documents)

They inform that "Seismology is not clearly identified in FP7 at the moment, and if the European seismological community does not react quickly, the funding opportunities through FP7 for the period 2007-2011 are likely to be slim or non-existent."

A UK consultation document aimed at collating the opinions of stakeholders in the UK closed on the 26th July and a position paper on FP7 is due to be published shortly.  (Responses to the consultation can be viewed at http://www.ost.gov.uk/ostinternational/fp7/)

While accepting that it is probably too late to provide a unified response from the whole UK geoscience community, it is still in fact possible for individuals (or group representatives) to provide input into the UK document concerning FP7, that will be submitted to the EC at the end of this year.

A questionnaire is available at http://www.ost.gov.uk/ostinternational/fp7/conresponse.html
which I very  strongly encourage you to complete in support of Seismology and other Geoscience activity.  The form is linked to a document 
http://www.ost.gov.uk/ostinternational/fp7/pdfs/conspaper.pdf
which needs to be read at the same time.

A shorter questionnaire (but possibly with less impact from an individual, in that it is independent of the UK submission to the EC is also available on European Union webpages at 
http://europa.eu.int/yourvoice/forms/dispatch.jsp?form=330&lang=EN
and again, I would strongly encourage you to complete this.

Finally, there is little time to do this - the forms have to be submitted by October 15th of this year.

I do hope you find time to do this, and look forward to hearing any comments you may have on this matter.

Yours sincerely,
Peter Maguire
President
British Geophysical Association

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Peter Maguire
Professor of Geophysics
Department of Geology
University of Leicester
Leicester LE1 7RH
UK

Tel: (0)116-252-3810
Fax: (0)116-252-3918
Email: [log in to unmask]
Home Page  http://www.le.ac.uk/geology/pkm/pkm.html
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