The 12 month meeting of ULTRAPLACAD project was held on 27^th – 28^th April 2016 at the Czech Academy of Sciences in Prague.

Prof. Jiři Homola from the Institute of Photonics and Electronics warmly welcomed the project team and the External Advisory Board (EAB) members Mrs. Jola Gore-Booth (EuropaColon), Prof. Maurizio Ferrari (IFCC), and Dr. Patrice M. Milos (Claritas Genomics). In the first day, the external experts had the opportunity to hear about the achievements of ULTRAPLACAD project, presented by the different partners. In the afternoon, a session was dedicated to the EAB recommendations to partners, mainly focused on the impact that the project will have on the society and on the market. As usual, technical discussions occurred to take decisions and agree on next actions. Finally, specific sessions on Open Access publications and on Exploitation and IPR strategies were attended by all the partners. Again the meeting was characterized by a collaborative and proactive behaviour of all the participants.

The 6 month meeting of ULTRAPLACAD project was held on 15^th and 16^th October 2015 at the Tech Gate building, UNO city area in Vienna.

Prof Dr. Wolfgang Knoll, Dr. Jakub Dostalek and all the group from the Austrian Institute of Technology (AIT) warmly welcomed the project team, including the new multidisciplinary members of the Consortium, recently hired by different partners’ organizations. The meeting, with several open discussions, was extremely useful for the definition of the next steps and the specifications for the development of each project component. An introduction to exploitation aspects was also provided during the meeting, highlighting once again the impact that ULTRAPLACAD will have on society, on the market and on scientific community. Social events were organized, encouraging team building, making the meeting’s environment comfortable and the discussions productive.

The European Commission runs the third edition of the EU Prize for Women Innovators to reward three women who have achieved outstanding innovations and brought them to market. The first prize is worth €100 000, the second prize €50 000 and third prize €30 000. The contest is open to all women residing in the EU or associated countries who have founded or co-founded a company across all sectors and who have at some point of their careers benefitted from EU’s research and innovation funding. The deadline for submitting application is on 20 October 2015. A high-level jury will evaluate and select the three winners who will be announced in 2016. Please read the leaflet for more information. ULTRAPLACAD supports the European Union initiatives to promote gender equality and encourages the scientific women’s participation to the EU Prize for Women Innovators.

The project coordinator was invited as speaker of the roundtable “Critical and success factors and as a result of the first calls for Social Challenge 1” organized by APRE (Italian National Contact Point) on 6^th October in Rome during the National Info Day (SC1), Health, demographic change and well-being: Calls 2016-17 in Horizon 2020. Follow the event here.

Patrizio Giacomini from Italian National Cancer Institute Regina Elena, partner of ULTRAPLACAD project, is invited by the coordinator of the 7FP STREP BILOBA project as speaker in the Open Workshop “Advances in Optical Biosensing Technologies” hosted as a special session of the NanoItaly Forum on September 21st – 24th 2015 in Rome (Italy).

INBB, the National Institute of Biostructures and Biosystems, is looking to strengthen its team with open positions for students and researchers in Parma and Catania. The links to the job advertisements are available here:

http://www.inbb.it/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Advertising_002-2015_INBB.pdf

http://www.inbb.it/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Advertising_001-2015_INBB.pdf

http://www.inbb.it/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/AdvertisingCT_INBB1.pdf

http://www.inbb.it/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/AdvertisingCT_INBB2.pdf

http://www.inbb.it/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/AdvertisingCT_INBB3.pdf