What is the Integration4Water Workshop Event?

The workshop designed as a three-day activity, organised on 2-4 June 2006 in Warsaw, Poland, was the key event of the EU FP6 SSA project Integration4Water that is aimed at stimulating the participation of the research teams from the New Member States (NMS) and Accession Candidate Countries (ACC) in the projects of the RTD Framework Programmes of the European Commission in the research area of "Water cycle including soil-related aspects"

The objectives for the workshop event were to:

• help identifying new areas of joint research as a starting point for co-operation in FP7 (contribution to the development of FP7 specific topics), especially these topics in which the NMS/ACC researchers could be project leaders ,
• train the NMS/ACC researchers in building integrated, interactive and multidisciplinary approaches as a strategy for proposal development,
• support integration of NMS/ACC and researchers from the Old Member States in joint European Topical Expert Groups as potential subconsortia to respond in particular to the FP7 specific topics,
• serve as a forum to disseminate and exchange information on water-related research activities conducted in national, regional and European scale by NMS/ACC organizations and the EU 15 States to be incorporated into the above mentioned approaches.

The scientific focus

The scientific focus of the workshops addressed especially the following areas of the water research including soil aspectsof the new FP7:

• Area 1 Climate Change and Water Resources
• Area 2 Water Resources Management
• Area 3 Environmental Technologies Related to Water and Soil

Who were the participants?

We welcomed leaders of research teams from organizations from both the Old and the New Member States (NMS) and Associated Candidate Countries (ACC) who had performed research in the area of water and soil related issues and were interested in:

• gaining skills in the development of integrated multidisciplinary approaches to the research topics related to water cycle including soil related issues,
• contributing to the development and implementation of the 7. Framework Programme for Research and Technological Development (FP7) in the area of water and soil related research,
• establishing project consortia for the FP7.

The targeted group of NMS/ACC countries comprised Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Slovenia, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Cyprus, Malta, Turkey, Romania and Bulgaria.

Who were the Moderators?

The workshop was moderated by 18 recognized scientists who are leaders in a specific water-related research area in Europe. To ensure complexity and integrity of approaches to individual topics, the moderators represented a variety of scientific disciplines.