Who is APRE

Activities

Role vis à vis the Commission

International experience

APRE skills

Who is APRE

APRE is a non-profit research organisation based in Italy that provides information, assistance and training in order to promote Italian participation on European Research and Technological Development programmes.
APRE was created upon the joint initiative of the Italian Ministry of Research and the European Commission in 1989 and is supported by approximately 100 member organisations, including both public and private research centres, industries, industrial associations, banks, chambers of commerce, science parks and 50 universities.

APRE's head office is situated in Rome and can also rely on a network of 17 regional helpdesks located throughout the national territory and on a branch in Brussels (/apre-bruxelles/english-version).

See here APRE's organisation structure.

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Activities

APRE's activities consist in particular in providing:

• information on EU research programmes - through several channels such as a help line for information by telephone, an Internet web-site, a periodic newsletter and a series of thematic dossiers, collaboration with numerous national and regional magazines, etc.;
• individual assistance and consultancy to potential participants with reference to the submission of successful research proposals;
• organisation of workshops, info-days and seminars;
• training courses;
• assistance in Transnational Technology Transfer.

All the services are provided according to the ISO 9001:2000 certification.

APRE hosts the Italian National Contact Points "NCPs" on the EU Seventh Framework Programme for R&I. During its 20 years of experience, APRE has established numerous contacts with the most relevant research organisations in Italy, and has a sound network of contacts with enterprises. APRE can help potential proposers in identifying suitable partners and establish contacts in order to submit transnational proposals within the Framework Programmes.

APRE signed several agreements with National, Local Institutions like: Ministry of Research and University, Ministry of Innovation, CNBB (National Committee for Biosecurity and Biotechnologies), UPI (the Union of Italian Provinces) for specific activities in different sectors: Biotec, ICT, Aeronautics and Space.

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Role vis à vis the Commission

Coming from the Third and Fourth EC Framework Programme - when APRE was identified as the National Focal Point for SMEs and Contact Point for FAIR, BIOT, MED and Joule Programmes and IST - in the Fifth Framework Programme APRE was Contact Point for the following programmes: Quality of Life, Information Society, Competitive and Sustainable Growth, Improving Human Potential and the Socio-Economic Knowledge Base and SMEs.

Within FP6 APRE was National Contact Point for the IST, Nanotech, Ecotech, Citizens and governance, SMEs, INCO and Science & Society programmes, while now in the Seventh Framework Programme APRE has been appointed by the Italian Ministry of Research and the European Commission as host organization of the Italian National Contact Points for all the themes and programmes as well as expert of the Information, Communication Technology Thematic group in the CIP Programme by the Ministry of Innovation and Technologies.

A strong experience has been also capitalised thanks to the membership to some important European networks such as the Enterprise Europe Network (former Innovation Relay Centre and Value Relay Centre) since 1993 - APRE is involved in the Agro-food Thematic Group and in the Information, Communication Technology Thematic group (ICT) - and Euraxess (former Eramore) since 2004.

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International experience

APRE has acquired a long practical experience in supporting activities financed by DG Research and DG INF-SO of the European Commission and as a partner in a successive series of international projects.

Within the Framework Programmes 4 and 5 the international activities of APRE aimed at increasing SME participation in different sectors such as life sciences, ICT, industrial technologies, fashion, etc.

Since 2000 APRE broadened the boundaries of its activities acting to improve international collaboration among research organisations and setting relationships with organisations in Central America, Argentina the Caribbean area, Canada, USA, India and China, Egypt and South Africa, Russia and Western Europe countries, etc.

Moreover, APRE has been nominated by the Italian Ministry of Research as Italian National Contact Point for EU-Africa partnership.

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APRE skills
20 years of experience in assistance to players in research domain and direct practical experience gave APRE the opportunity to  acquire and improve a certain number of capabilities and precious know-how, such as:

• a strong experience in the Executive Management; APRE is also expert in contractual issues as the Italian Legal and financial NCP and has a team expert on Consortium Agreement.
• a significant aptitude in dissemination: a database of about 40.000 contacts is a valuable asset together with its national and international networks (i.e. the NCP network, the Enterprise Europe Network, the APRE partners Network, etc) that assure a wide and focussed dissemination at national, European and International level; APRE staff have been trained with several course on communication matters and have led some European Support Action for the dissemination of Research results.
• A renamed experience on training in training activities (courses, workshops, info-days and seminars, mentoring) at world wide level and used for implementing  e-learning platforms also from the European Commission.
• The long experience in the European partner search service evolved in  an on-line Partner Search portal managed by a back-office team which works side by side with the NCPs.
• a deep knowledge of the International Cooperation sector.

All the above mentioned experiences have been capitalised by the Proposal preparation Unit  which has been setting up for designing proposal within the European Research & Innovation funding programmes.
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