ICT: Other types of ICT infrastructure/large-scale computer resources/equipment (including e-infrastructure, data centres and sensors; also where embedded in other infrastructure such as research facilities, environmental and social infrastructure)

13. Calls on the Commission to actively support the relevant strategy-setting and research functions of the EU Reference Laboratory (the Joint Research Centre) to identify priority areas for replacement of animal research techniques, including through identification of human toxicity and disease pathways and development of human-relevant in-vitro and computational models of disease;

[16] The rare disease topics in the 2012 and 2013 FP7 Health Calls were: 'Support for international rare disease research; Clinical utility of –omics for better diagnosis of rare diseases; Databases, biobanks and clinical ‘bio-informatics’ hub for rare diseases; Preclinical and clinical development of orphan drugs; Observational trials in rare diseases; Best practice and knowledge sharing in clinical management of rare diseases (2012) and Development of imaging technologies for therapeutic interventions in rare diseases; New methodologies for clinical trials for small population groups (2013).

Though my fellow members believe the focus should be more on improving the existing website of the EU’s Joint Research Centre Agriculture Unit so that all relevant research data can be made freely available to the public, I am very much in favour of the creation of a spatial data infrastructure and a website as the European Commission’s objectives propose.

RTD infrastructure (including physical plant, instrumentation and high-speed computer networks linking research centres) and centres of competence in a specific technology

For example, the Centre de la recherche informatique de Montréal has launched a research program on speech recognition.