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The European Commission is financing a large number of supporting projects in all thematic priorities of FP6. Only in the IST priority there is more than 50 projects aimed at increasing the number and quality of proposals (in a form of proposal development as a conventional activity) and introduction of specific services (focused on financial issues, special applications and tools, mapping reports and databases, research promotion services, etc.).

I have already described the GiST application for proposal development in my previous article. Today I will focus on the specific (’bonus’ or ‘go-beyond’) services introduced by the IST Bonus project aimed at development and promotion of the research profiles and creation of the research action plans.

IST Bonus is supporting project within the Sixth Framework Programme oriented mainly on upgrading the participation of organisations from the New Member States (NMS) and Accession Candidate Countries (ACC) to the IST priority both in quantitative and qualitative terms, particularly regarding two wide areas: e-business and e-working technologies and related state-of-the-art applications. The major objective of the project is to facilitate the transition of competent organisations from the position ?research followers? (that is partner with low capability to influence research course) to the position ?research leaders? (coordinators or major partners of RTD project).

Project includes various activities divided into two groups:
? ?conventional activities? - targeting to a large number of interested organisations such as information days, workshops, consultations, tutorial sessions, brokerage events.
? ?go beyond activities? ? based on a set of ?Research Bonus Services?. These activities are targeting to a selective number of highly motivated and competent organisations, which possess the potential to become research leaders in IST in a form of research profiles (prepared by communication experts for 25-30 selected organisations) and research action plans (for 15-20 selected organisations in order to achieve their upgraded participation in IST activities and promote their research capacities and excellence in mid-term to long-term period - 3-5 years).

Speciality of the project is the opportunity to lead European research in their domains of expertise by exploiting the bonus Scheme in the form of high-added value guidance and support services. The scheme called ?Research Bonus Services? supports competent organisations (their experiences, competences, strengths and areas, in which they take the biscuit) from the NMS & ACC. It will produce research PR profiles, SWOT analyses, research action plans oriented on design and formulation of the research strategy in order to maximize their advertising effect with a view to get the organisations into awareness of the strong research organisations EU-15 and to create international co-operation one another as well.
The participation in the project is possible for academic and research institutes, universities, innovative SMEs and research departments of midrange and large enterprises all them acting in the fields of e-business, e-working and related technologies.

The project is co-ordinated by Greek company Q-Plan and the other members of the consortium from Germany, Turkey, Ireland, Greece, Bulgaria, Slovakia, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Estonia, and Malta.