July 2017 – Reports – ESRS ANSS EU Committee
Published in ESRS Newsletter July 2017
ESRS ANSS EU Committee
Report on the activities: March 2017 – July 2017
Members (2016 – 2018):
Roberto Amici (Coordinator), Diego Garcia Borreguero (Vice-Coordinator), Liborio Parrino (EC ANSS Chair), Damien Leger, Pierre-Hervé Luppi, Walter McNicholas, Lino Nobili, Tiina Paunio, Philippe Peigneux, Dieter Riemann, Debra J. Skene, Johan Verbraecken
The main aims of the Committee are: i) to bring the topics of “sleep” and “sleep disorders” to the attention of the EU in order to receive support for research and teaching activities; ii) to promote sleep-related issues from a political point of view at a European and national level.
The activity of the EU Committee in the past months has been aimed at elaborating new strategies in order to put forward, at the level of the EU Commission, “Sleep and Sleep Disorders” as a topic for Horizon 2020 upcoming call 2018-20. As you know, a document on the need for more funding on sleep research has been finalized in 2016 in collaboration with the Assembly of the National Sleep Societies (ANSS) and is available at https://esrs.eu/about/committees/esrs-anss-eu-committee/documents/. With respect to this, relevant EU officers of the pillar “Health” of the DG “Research and Innovation” have been contacted in order to meet them in Brussels and to discuss the document and further possible initiatives aimed at enhancing and empowering sleep research in Europe.
This topic has been discussed by the ESRS Board and the Presidents of the National Sleep Societies during the meeting of the ANSS, which has been recently held in Reykjavík, Iceland. In particular, the outcomes of an analysis of the distribution of EU funding for research and innovation in the last fifteen years has been presented, which clearly showed that the percentage of total EU funding specifically allocated for sleep research was reduced four times in FP7 and H2020 compared to FP6. The need for every NSS President to be proactive in addressing the issue of sleep research at the level of the National Contact Points of the pillar “Health” of the DG “Research and Innovation”, in order to sensitize the National Members of the Advisory Board who is in charge to finalize the Horizon Health 2020 call for 2018-20, has been confirmed.
Roberto Amici