The Powerpoint presentation below (Download under "Related Documents") is based on the Commission's Digital Agenda Scoreboard data and shows key digital indicators and statistics for Czech Republic and other Member States.

The Powerpoint presentation below (Download under "Related Documents") is based on the Commission's Digital Agenda Scoreboard data and shows key digital indicators and statistics for Belgium and other Member States.

The Powerpoint presentation below (Download under "Related Documents") is based on the Commission's Digital Agenda Scoreboard data and shows key digital indicators and statistics for Bulgaria and other Member States.

The Powerpoint presentation below (Download under "Related Documents") is based on the Commission's Digital Agenda Scoreboard data and shows key digital indicators and statistics for Cyprus and other Member States.

The Powerpoint presentation below (Download under "Related Documents") is based on the Commission's Digital Agenda Scoreboard data and shows key digital indicators and statistics for Austria and other Member States.

Powerpoint presentation based on our 2012 Scoreboard data. Please feel free to use it in your presentations, or share it with the outside world, Digital Champions, Ministries, Regulators and other stakeholders.

The Dutch program Digitally Skilled & Digitally Safe aims to enhancing the digital skills of the labor force: future employees, working people and jobseekers of 15 – 64 years of age in order to enhance the capacity for innovation and the productivity of the economy.

The current ICT Call 10 for proposals is open between 10 July 2012 and 15 January 2013. It includes Objective 8.1 calling for research on Technologies and scientific foundations in the field of creativity. This background document is intended for stakeholders interested in submitting research project proposals under Objective 8.1. It aims to help participants understand the work programme by discussing the individual target outcomes.

Wherever you are in the European Union, you can always reach the emergency services on 112, the single European emergency number. The EU rules on 112 have recently been reinforced and the Commission continues to monitor their correct implementation in the 27 Member States of the European Union.

Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is a highly relevant and epidemiologically significant contributor to loss of quality and quantity of life within Europe with considerable impact on its economy. It causes over 1.9 million deaths in the EU every year with a total estimated cost of EUR 169 billion. The diversity and quantity of available data in current clinical workflow present a significant opportunity to improve clinical care of CVD. At the same time, the clinical practice of using population-based metrics derived from disparate diagnostic tools, imaging devices and physiological measurement systems can indicate contradictory treatments plans due to inter-individual variability in pathophysiology. The euHeart project is working on the In-silico simulation of the patient's heart to address these issues and to provide the best assistive decision-making tool.

eCall, an electronic safety system that automatically calls emergency services in the case of a serious car accident, is ready to be deployed across Europe. Even if you are unconscious, the system will inform rescue workers of the crash site's exact location, and the ambulance will be on its way within minutes. eCall will save lives and reduce the severity of injuries. The technical development of eCall is completed. The Commission is reinforcing efforts to speed up the deployment of this life-saving technology, with the aim of having a fully functional EU-wide service in place by 2015. Parallel action of Member States, car manufacturers, telecom operators and emergency centres is now needed to ensure that this system will seamlessly function throughout Europe by this time.

Modern medicine is irreversibly shifting towards less invasive surgical procedures. Conventional open surgery approaches are systematically being replaced by interventions that reduce access trauma and thereby minimise pain and hospitalisation periods. In the perspective of patient safety, SCATh aims at minimizing these drawbacks specifically for a series of promising catheterization procedures with as common denominator treatment of cardiovascular disease, the main cause of death in the EU. The final product of SCATh will be a single software framework and robotic platform that integrates all the technological tools developed during the project.

This very rich newsletter is providing, among others, information on new Virtual Physiological Human Projects, the VPH Institute, the ARGOS project: toward a transatlantic policy for the long-term sustainability of the VPH Infostructure, the VPH Training in Action: MeDDiCA, VPH NoE News FP7 Health - Orientation Paper with Indicative List of Topics, etc. It also focuses on the PredictAD project that deals with Alzheimer’s disease and features a comprehensive interview with I. Iakovidis on the VPH related research in the area of ICT for Ageing in the future.

This paper presents the EU’s research framework programmes and the mission and objectives of the Photonics Unit. It describes the main challenges and R&D priorities which the Photonics unit of the Information Society and Media Directorate General of the European Commission is supporting under the 7th Framework Programme and provides representative examples of EU-funded photonics research projects. Finally, it also presents the way forward for EU photonics research.

Mobility in Europe is growing as European citizens travel abroad more and more often for business reasons, as commuters or as exchange students. This increased mobility also leads to a greater need for supportive measures for the travelling population, in particular in the healthcare sector. When abroad, we all could find ourselves in need of medical care some day. The epSOS consortium has taken on the goal of improving medical treatment of European citizens while abroad. This year, the epSOS pilot operation phase will be initiated.

For any healthcare systems, chronic diseases represent the heaviest cost burden. A plethora of ICT based applications have been developed in recent years, allowing a partial tackling of problems related to specific diseases. CLEAR proposes the implementation of a tele-rehabilitation service in four European Member States (IT, ES, NL, PL). The ambition is to convert the project, after its completion, to a European service for tele-rehabilitation and to contribute to the harmonization of e-health services in the EU.

HeartCycle is an Integrated Project aiming at researching, developing and clinically validating innovative solutions for the management of cardiovascular diseases. It focuses on patients after heart attack and chronically ill heart failure patients. In future the number of these patients will dramatically increase due to the demographic change. We will face a large need for care and at the same time a gap in the number of available care givers. Finding better ways that allow health professionals to manage and treat more patients with high-quality healthcare at moderate cost is therefore seen as a huge opportunity space. Empowering patients to play a more active role in their own disease management will be crucial but remains a major challenge.

The eHealth industry is growing fast. Thanks to the new electronic services it provides, healthcare is becoming more efficient. As a result, healthcare professionals and patients can now get quicker and easier access to vital health information.

Scientists from the Bernstein Center at the University in Freiburg in Germany have taken a step forward in the quest to predict epileptic seizures by monitoring the pre-seizure changes in sufferers' brains. The research study was funded in part by the EPILEPSIAE ('Evolving platform for improving living expectation of patients suffering from Ictal events') project, which received nearly EUR 3 million under the 'Information and communication technologies' (ICT) Theme of the EU's Seventh Framework Programme (FP7). The research was recently published in the journal Epilepsia.

Just as we are taught to read and write, we need to understand how the various types of media work and how to critically evaluate their content. With the developments in Information and Communication Technologies, the media environment has been changing rapidly. Media play an increasingly important role in our everyday life. They allow us to participate in democratic and cultural life. This is why the European Commission has issued guidelines for this skill, referred to as "Media Literacy".