1. Project progress summary

There are two main long term goals that we move towards through this project. Firstly we seek for networking of the Estonian Biocentre with centres of excellence in research in the EU and beyond via joint research and training activities, including exchange of students and research personnel. Secondly we aim to address our human capital building for research and development in genomics. Here, in addition to strictly our - EBC - personnel, we keep a wider context including also the needs of the growing Estonian Genome Project of the Tartu University.

Understandably movement towards both of these long term goals is not limited to this project, not temporally nor activities wise. This project is one of the means for the EBC in its steady push towards the goals. That said it has to be stressed that the specific objectives we have set out to achieve through the activities built into a coherent set of the six work packages of this project, are all directly verifiable during the progress of the project. Our plans in developing of strategic partnership with well established research groups elsewhere in the Union, would be directly and objectively measurable not just by short- and long-term visits and workshops (those are really means, not results), but first and foremost by:

(I) joint international publications and patents;
(II) joint participation in FP7 projects;
(III) any common bi- or multidirectional projects and programmes within the ERA, but outside FP7;
(IV) the extent of flow of researchers, in particular young researchers, between EBC and the partner institutions.

More specific aspects of our objectives, like the repatriation scheme and mobilizing unused human resources, are also directly measurable, including their effect to the fulfilment of the mentioned above indicators. The impacts of the measures to be taken are immediate in a sense that they can be quantified within the time frame of the project.

Description of the workplan, its implementation and emerging results since the beginning of the project

WP1
The first work package addresses our intellectual capacity. More clearly, we bear here in mind discovering hidden, underused and otherwise potentially lost intellectual capital - i.e. scientists, who for that or another reason, are either professionally "underused" or simply not here.

Here we identify two target groups.The first are women scientists returning from maternity leave. After having stayed away from active research for a considerable time period it is understandably difficult to get back on track into competitive science. We therefore introduced here in WP1 what we call Women in Science (WIS) grants. These grants are neither salaries nor stipends. Instead applicants write a grant proposal where they devise a work plan of their own. This may include attending conferences, hands-on courses, purchasing textbooks, study visits or similar. Successful applicants receive 10 000 EUR for a year to carry out the work plan. Altogether 6 such grants were planned and first three were issued after an open call concluded in October 2008. The awardees have since attended conferences and courses, bought textbooks and stayed as a guest scientist in labs abroad. It is still too soon to expect more measurable results in terms of co-authored research papers or similar.

The second target group is potential repatriates. We aim to attract back promising young and experienced researchers of Estonian origin doing their research abroad. We have planned 4 repatriation grants with personnel costs of 30 600 EUR each. One grant has been awarded during the first year and this has already resulted in a publication (Kasper & Jaks et al. Carcinogenesis. 2009 Feb 23.) and an inoculum of an emerging new research group in the EBC-IMCB.

WP2
The activities of WP2 are perhaps most traditional means for strengthening ones human potential and research capacity. That is know-how transfer through short and medium term outward mobility of our researchers, especially post-doctoral fellows and PhD students. Of the 35 planned man months under this task 10 have incurred during the first reporting period. We financed two post doctoral fellowships. One awardee went to Tampere University, Finland and the other to University of Oxford, England. Both these post doctoral researchers are gaining knowhow in vital to the EBC and indicated in Annex I areas of knowledge. In Oxford Reedik Mägi is implementing a postdoc project titled "Statistical genetics of genome-wide association studies for analysing continuous traits" and Priit Jőers's project centres on finding new genes and protein interactions in mtDNA maintenance in yeast model. These projects are expected to result in increased know-how transfer and increasing collaboration between the institutions manifested in joint publications. According to what is planned in Annex I we expect first such papers by month 24 of the project.

WP4
This WP aims to establishing twinning schemes between the EBC and well established research groups from abroad. We seek here not for short bilateral projects but for common programs where the lasting partnership would allow a much more powerful approach, including seeking for the participation in calls under FPs.

The specific actions under this WP include 20 study visits with a duration of 5-20 days. These study visits will either mean visit of EBC employed researchers to a partner research institution abroad or indeed the other way around, visits of foreign researchers to the EBC. In addition to study visits we will organise 2 brainstorm meetings with duration of approximately 4 days each and with approximately 7 travelling participants each time.

During the firs year of the project eleven study visits (6 in and 5 out) were financed.

The specific deliverable of this WP are (9) joint FP7 grant proposals. During this reporting period one such proposal was prepared (FP7-INFRASTRUCTURES-2008-1; Proposal: European Genotyping Infrastructure, EGI; Number of Partners: 13; Coordinator: CEA/Centre National de Génotypage - CNG; Our PI: Prof. Andres Metspalu, Estonian Biocentre.). Although the project received very good marks from the review panel, the final financing decision was unfortunately negative.

WP5
The general strategy for WP5 includes promoting our in situ developed know-how through hands-on training courses/seminars and boost international cooperation and changing of ideas as well as increasing true public awareness through (continuation of) a series of high level international conferences (GENEFORUM). The aim of the hands-on training courses/seminars is to combine here an advanced international lecture course with training in new methods, in particular where the elements of the latter have been developed "in situ" - i.e locally. The targeted audience is mostly young scientists from Europe, while local interested parties will, of course, not be denied either. Hence, in rather direct way such courses serve as an advert for our know-how and would, hopefully, facilitate export capacity of our emerging biotech.

We have planned to organise two hands-on training courses/seminars each year. Due to unexpected misfortune we managed to organise only one such event during the first year: "Viral Expression Vectors for Research and Biotechnology" (http://www.tuit.ut.ee/194849) However, the preparations for the second one were also nearly completed and the event was held during the first month of the second reporting period (http://www.tuit.ut.ee/426218).

From the very start in the year 2000 the EBC has with the help of different EC grants been a partner organiser of the yearly GENEFORUM conference (www.geneforum.ee). This year's conference was held in June and concentrated on Functional Genomics. The list of speakers was impressive as always ranging from Latvia to USA and covering most of the European countries in between.

All the management activities of the project are collected into WP6

Final results and their potential impact and use (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

The final results of the project will reflect the deeper integration of the EBC into the framework of European research community. This is achieved by two interconnected sets of activities. One of which concentrates directly on fuelling the existing and creating new fruitful collaboration actions between the EBC and well established research centres in Europe and beyond. The other centres on building our human capital through know-how transfer and motivation building. Both these activities will among other results, that are more difficult to measure, produce measurable results in the number of published research papers and jointly prepared FP7 and other grant applications. So far we can report of one FP7 grant application and 50 published research papers (ISI, PubMed) during the reporting period in question.

On a wider scale the project has identifiable socio-economic impact on the Estonian genetics related R&D community. An Estonian proverb sais, that one cannot cook a thicker soup in one end of the pot. This is true here too. Building the human capital of the EBC and integrating it more deeply into the European structures necessarily has a positive effect on the Estonian research community as a whole. Specifically we mention that the EBC and the Estonian Genome Project and Biotechnology Department of the Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology of the Tartu University have won a tight competition for one of the seven available national centres of excellence in research. This integration forms by far the most important centre for human genetics research in Estonia and therefore serves as a platform for more wider use of the specific results of the project.

A particular aspect of the human capital building needs special mentioning in the context of the wider socio-economic impact of the project. This is the repatriation scheme by which we attract back Estonian researchers from top labs all over the world. This approach has in the past yielded viable new research groups and professorships in fields poorly covered in the EBC and University of Tartu, thus significantly contributing to overall R&D quality in Estonia.

Speaking about wider societal implications we cannot look around our Women in Science grants. These grants provide promising women scientist returning from child leave a soft landing scheme to help them regain their competence and re-enter the frontline of scientific research. This scheme contributes to equality of genders in scientific research.

Another marked societal implication directly arising from the project is rising public awareness in genetics. This is achieved through high-level international conferences that among others gather local medical doctors and science teachers as audience and attract high level press attention (evening news on national TV and all important newspapers). Rising public awareness in genetics is not something abstract. From the standpoint of the Estonian Genome Project, truly informed consent of the gene donors is essential. This can, however, come about solely with attention and education.