COASTWEB – COASTAL AND MARINE PORTAL
(Posted 10 July 2006)

Developed by the coastal networking organisation, CoastNet, in conjunction with EU project Corepoint; the CoastWeb site went live on 29 June 2006. It is aimed at everyone with an interest in coastal and marine issues, in the UK, Europe and the world. CoastWeb is a multi-phased project. Currently the site hosts an online library of information and provides an automated news service but additional features such as a local search facility is planned for Phase II.

The website can be found at:
(http://www.coastweb.info)

AQUADOCINTER – INTERNATIONAL PORTAL FOR WATER MANAGERS
(Posted 10 July 2006)

The project consists building a global network of national water information centres, offering unified and multilingual access (in French, English, Spanish, Portuguese, Eastern European languages), through a common portal on the Internet, to the documentation, experiences and experts’ knowledge available in all the partner countries, especially those participating in the International Network of Basin Organisations (INBO). Among others it also intend to provide information about the European Water Framework Directive (WFD) in the network Countries.

For more details see the Project’s website:
(http://www.aquadocinter.org)

INTERREG NORTH SEA PROGRAMME – NEW PROGRAMME
(Posted 10 July 2006)

Preparations for the new Objective 3 North Sea Programme have been underway for some time now. The new programme will draw from the experiences made during the IIC and IIIB programme periods and focus on topics of the most interest and urgent concern. The programme will start in 2007 and there will be a tender for projects sometime in the early months of that same year.

A programme preparation group (PPG) was set up by the monitoring committee in September 2005 and there have been five PPG-meetings to date.  The Draft Objective 3 North Sea Programme is a consultation document designed to stimulate ideas on how transnational co-operation can contribute to promote innovation and enhance sustainable development in the North Sea Region, i.e. what can be done by transnational co-operation projects to best capitalise on the opportunities, and deal with challenges and problems in the North Sea Region. On the basis of the response to this draft programme, the countries represented in the PPG and the secretariat will develop a consolidated Operational Programme to be submitted to the European Commission in the autumn 2006.  Closing date for the consultation is 11 August 2006.

For details see the Project’s website:
(http://www.interregnorthsea.org/index.asp?id=120)