The Eracobuild ERA-NET has issued its first Newsletter recently.

In addition to a general overview of Eracobuild activities by Luc Bourdeau, Coordinator, and an interview with the Chairman of the Steering Committte Theo Zillner from BMVIT, Austria, it contains information on the 2 first joint calls launched by Eracobuild in the framework of two trans-national programmes already agreed by Eracobuild: "Value Driven Processes" and "Sustainable Renovation". News from the Dutch National Liaison Point of E2B are also included in this issue.

The European Commission, the Spanish Presidency of the European Union, the Government of Principality of Asturias, the NANOfutures association and PRODINTEC have announced the Official Launching of the European Initiative "NANOfutures": European Technology Integration and Innovation Platform (ETIP) in Nanotechnology. This event will be held in Gijón (Asturias) on the 15-16th June 2010

All buildings built after 31 December 2020 must have high energy-saving standards and be powered to a large extent by renewable energy. Public authorities will lead the way two years earlier and part of the funding for these changes will come from the EU. These are among the key points of a deal reached on Tuesday 17 November 2009 between Parliament and Council negotiators.

The European Construction Technology Platform (ECTP) and the Energy Efficient Buildings European Initiative (E2B EI) are jointly organising their annual conference that will take place in Brussels on 24 & 25 November 2009.

This first newsletter covers the progress made during the first six-month period of the Cost Effective project.

You can download this Newsletter from the Publication directory.

The Solar Thermal sector has led the process towards the creation of an European Renewable Heating and Cooling Technology Platform (RHC-ETP)

After more than one year of exhausting negotiations, the EU COST EFFECTIVE project officially started on October 1st 2008.The Kick-off meeting took place on 7-8-9 October 2008 in Freiburg, Germany hosted by Fraunhofer ISE, coordinator of this project. More than 50 participants from all over Europe attended this event, where main technical and managerial issues where discussed.

With an unmistakable slogan "The future of Building" the leading trade fair for the European building industry, BAU 2009, has once again opened its doors in Munich from January 12th - 19th in the New Munich Trade Fair Centre, Germany. Approximately 211,000 participants seized the opportunity to take advantage of 1,920 exhibitors from 43 different countries presenting the latest products in the construction and built environment. According to this years focus "The future of Building" the trade show put a special emphasis on renewable energy sources and the solutions which the different technologies offer for the building and construction industry. With more than 50 exhibitors from the solar building sector the trade show also reflected the exponential growth and rising influence of the solar industry.

Organised by the European Commission's Information Society and Media Directorate-General, in cooperation with the Czech Presidency of the European Union, the ICT4EE conference took place in Brussels on 19-20 March 2009. This event aimed to accord visibility to the potential of ICTs in enabling energy efficiency across the economy and in particular it will show how ICT-based innovations may provide one of the potentially most cost-effective means to achieve the 2020 energy and climate targets. The conference was complemented by an exhibition of stands illustrating results achieved by relevant EU-funded projects and a set of stands for international initiatives including the relevant European Technology Platforms.

EU Commissioner for Science and Research Janez Potocnik, agreed on Wednesday 1th of April with high-level representatives of the automotive, construction and manufacturing sectors that smart investments in clean technologies should be made within a public private partnership framework. They recognized the importance of coordination of such investments at EU level.