General Presentation

PRIME 2007 general conference

The third annual conference took place in Pisa, January 29- February 1, 2007.
Go to the page Programme to see the full programme and download the documents distributed and presentations made.
At the end of the third year of PRIME activities, we chose a different structure.
We considered that the time was now ripe for the main research activities supported by PRIME to present preliminary synthetic results in a policy perspective. This is what we have called "position papers".
Activities or projects thus delivered a 10-15 pages paper and a 30 minutes presentation organised around the main results arrived at, and the way in which they question prevailing policies and suggest complementary or different directions.
In each session there was one hour devoted to discussion, the latter being often introduced by a discussant. There were 12 such sessions, organised around 4 main themes.
Recent developments in both training and indicator activities have been presented. Activities in Training are well known and the group held a working meeting on Thursday afternoon, and for indicators there were a plenary discussing strategic issues and a presentation of PRIME 2007-2008 action programme.
The conference started at the end of Monday afternoon with a keynote speech by Irwin Feller about the recent debates and initiatives in the US on the "science of science policy".
Thursday morning was devoted to strategic issues about the future of the network. Which perspectives ? For which activities ? With which agenda ? And whether and how to continue it in FP7.  

PhD Poster competition 

PRIME gave PhD students from PRIME institutes the opportunity to present their work at the PRIME Annual Conference in Pisa.
After an application process, five posters were selected and presented an electronic poster which was displayed in a central location at the conference allowing members of the PRIME network to see their work.
The selection committee decided to grant two joint awards and these were announced at the official dinner by Finn Hanson, the head of the selection committee.