The EPN Consulting Newsletter - 082 - June 2017
Editorial
Dear Colleague,

In the UK every room of hotels, guest houses, hostels must have a smoke alarm installed and operational, which is a reasonable and useful mandatory rule.

What happened in the Grenfell Tower in West London last 14 June, though, on top of the immense sorrow for the victims and their families, should impose a serious and thorough analysis of what is needed in tall buildings. Smoke alarms have clearly proved to be useless if other escape routes and related infrastructures are missing or insufficient.

In hotels we always read: "do not use lifts in case of fire" due to the high risk of being blocked inside. Correct. But when there are tens of floors to run down and just a couple of staircases, it is virtually impossible for people at top floors to reach a safe area on the pavement in due time.
It is not possible to build safety vaults on each floor because of their weight and because, in case of fire, the entire building could collapse, making these vaults ineffective.
I am an Electronic engineer and I know very little of civil/infrastructure matter, but certainly the design of new tall buildings - the current worldwide trend - must change radically if we would like to enjoy living in apartments with stunning views and great comfort.

First of all, some solutions for existing buildings must be urgently assessed, designed and implemented. Otherwise, all the new technologies utilised to improve the quality of life of these residents (e.g. smartphone apps to remotely manage lighting, heating & cooling, etc.) will be
absolutely good for nothing.
 



EPN Consulting Ltd.
Founder, CEO


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EU
Horizon 2020 & other calls close to deadline


31 Aug 2017  - Deadline to submit proposals to the ERC-2017-ADG call (ERC Advanced Grant)

05 Sept 2017 - Deadline of No. 7 H2020 calls for proposals

EU Negotiators agree on the WiFi4EU Initiative
EU

29 May 2017 -  The European Parliament, the Council and the Commission reached a political agreement on the WiFi4EU initiative and its funding which supports installing free public Wi-Fi hotspots in local communities across the EU: in public squares, piazzas, parks, hospitals and other public spaces.

The political agreement includes a commitment by the three institutions to ensure that an overall amount of €120m (£105m) shall be assigned to fund equipment for public free Wi-Fi services in 6,000 to 8,000 municipalities in all Member States. 

Local authorities will be able to apply for funding once the system is set up.

EU
EU-wide multi-modal TIS provision  

31 May 2017 - Digitalisation of transport plays an important role in bringing more efficiency to transport operations and the management of traffic flows. Efficiency gains have been highlighted in the context of the Digital Single Market Strategy where the free flow of data is seen as an enabler of growth, jobs and competitiveness for the EU. Furthermore, the role of  digitalisation in supporting modal shift is also recognised within the  E nergy Union Strategy and recently adopted Strategy for Low-emission Mobility.

These draft documents supplement the Directive 2010/40/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council with regard to the provision of EU-wide multi-modal travel information services.

EU
Revision of the EETS Directive

31 May 2017 - Electronic toll collection systems have been deployed at national, regional or local level in 20 Member States and the number of systems is increasing constantly. The vast majority require road users to install special equipment (OBUs=On-Board Units) in their vehicles. While a  few offer cross-border interoperability, most do not.

This results in costs and burdens for users, who must equip their vehicles with multiple OBUs to be able to drive unhindered in different countries. The costs are estimated at 334m (£293m) a year currently and are expected to fall to just below 300m (£263m) a year by 2025 (with no new action at EU level).

After a stakeholders' consultation and further analyses, an EETS (European Electronic Tolling Service) revision has been proposed.

EC will invest EUR 100m to help 69 SMEs bring their innovation to the market    
EU

08 June 2017 -  69 SMEs from 21 countries have been selected for funding in the latest round of the Horizon 2020 SME Instrument Phase 2. The total amount to be distributed between the SMEs working on 64 projects is €99.963m (£ 87.7m).

In this phase of the SME instrument, each project will receive up to €2.5m (£2.2m) (€5m, £4.38m for Health projects) to finance innovation activities. Funding under Phase 2 of the instrument allows companies to invest in innovation activities such as demonstration, testing, piloting, scaling up and miniaturisation, in addition to developing a mature business plan for their product.



One of the EPN Consulting's professional services includes the assistance to SMEs in converting their ideas in sound and effective proposals and taking care of the entire proposal writing and submission process. Next cut-off date of the SME Instr Phase 2: 18 October 2017.
Get in touch  for a FREE consultation now!
Reflection Paper on harnessing Globalisation 
EU

10 May 2017 - The reflection paper opens up a vital debate on how the EU can best harness globalisation and respond to its opportunities and challenges.

On the external front, the paper focuses on the need to shape a truly sustainable global order, based on shared rules and a common agenda.

On the domestic front, the paper suggests tools to protect and empower citizens through robust social policies and providing the necessary education and training support throughout their lives.

Read more
EPN Consulting Limited

EPN Consulting News  




On 06 June 2017 in London the EPN  Consulting CEO  Stefano Mainero   took part in the TravelSpirit UK Board Meeeting.
This was a good opportunity to discuss the possibility of launching the TravelSpirit North Italy Regional branch that would be led by Stefano.

The TravelSpirit community is curated by the TravelSpirit Foundation to provide a global community resource of infrastructure, networks and code, that will set us on the road to building the Internet of Mobility.

TravelSpirit.io is an open collaboration between independent stakeholders, creating a platform for them to deliver Mobility as a Service (MaaS) solutions, enabled by open source licensing and open development, anchored in a public fiduciary entity.

The mission objectives for TravelSpirit are:
- forming a community of practice to create new, commercially-viable MaaS solutions built from both existing open source components and new code
- growing the liberty of its community through open source, open and portable data and open development
- submitting improvements we make to existing code upstream where possible and encourage users of our code to contribute improvements to us
- ensuring that all work will be open source, using the Mozilla Public Licence v2 and compatible licenses
- seeking to enable downstream commercial deployment while keeping TravelSpirit as a not-for-profit community

More info will follow soon!
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Upcoming Professional Events in Europe

19-22 June 2017 - Strasbourg (FR) -  ITS+TRA  -  12th ITS EUROPEAN CONGRESS
19-25 June 2017 - Europe -  ENE+EUP -  EUSEW 2017 - European Sustainable Energy Week
20-21 June 2017 - Stuttgart (DE) -  ITS+TRA -  AUTONOMOUS VEHICLE SOFTWARE SYMPOSIUM 2017
26-27 June 2017 - Berlin (DE) -  ICT+TEC -  AUTONOMOUS MACHINES WORLD 2017
26-28 June 2017 - Copenhagen (DK) -  FIN+ICT -  MONEY 2020 EUROPE
27 June 2017 - London (UK) -  ICT -  FT DIGITAL HEALTH SUMMIT EUROPE
27-28 June 2017 - Brussels (BE) -  TRA -  EUROPEAN LOGISTICS AND SUPPLY CHAIN Conference
28-29 June 2017 - London (UK) -  ENE -  EUROPEAN SOLAR PV ASSET MANAGEMENT FORUM 2017
28-29 June 2017 - London (UK) -  EUP+FIN -  TAX FAIRNESS Conference
29 June 2017 - Manchester (UK) -  TRA -  EUROPEAN BUS FORUM 2017

The Website of the Month:

Breaking News:  EU Budget revised to meet new priorities
 
 
On 20 June 2017 the European Council adopted the revision of the 2014-2020 EU Budgetary Framework.
The MFF regulation sets out annual maximum amounts which the EU is allowed to spend on different policy areas over the period from 2014 to 2020. It translates political priorities into figures, ensures budgetary discipline for the EU and facilitates the adoption of the annual EU budget.

The revised multi-annual financial framework (MFF) increases the resources earmarked for the EU's main priorities by €6.01bn (£5.27bn) for the years 2017-2020:
 
- €2.08bn (£1.82bn) will help stimulate growth and create jobs through a number of highly effective programmes such as the youth employment initiative (+€1.2bn, +£1.05bn),
Horizon 2020 (+€200m, +£175.44m), and Erasmus+ (+€100m, +£87.72m)

- €2.55bn (£2.23bn) will be available to address migration, enhance security and strengthen external border control

- €1.39bn (£1.22bn) will be available for tackling the root causes of migration

The revised MFF regulation will now be published in the EU Official Journal and enters into force 20 days later.

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