The European Commission has released details of the first projects to be financed under the 'Socio-economic sciences and humanities' and 'Science in society' programmes of the Seventh Framework Programme (FP7).

The 93 projects, which will share some €80 million between them, were selected from proposals submitted following the first call for proposals in December 2006.

The goal of the 'Socio-economic sciences and humanities' (SSH) programme is to advance our understanding of the major socio-economic challenges facing Europe. These include growth, employment, competitiveness, the knowledge society, social cohesion, education, sustainability, migration and integration.

Under the first call of FP7, 65 projects will receive a total of over €59 million. The topics they cover are extremely wide ranging. For example, the €1.2 million 'Media and citizenship' project will investigate the use of Arabic language television in Europe. The project partners will then provide policy advice on issues relating to the media and integration and citizenship in Europe.

The EU's Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) is the subject of two large, €1.5 million projects slated for funding. The CAP-IRE ('Assessing the multiple impacts of the Common Agricultural Policies on rural economies') project will seek to boost sustainable development in Europe's rural areas by improving our understanding of long-term socio-economic mechanisms of change in these regions.

Meanwhile the RUFUS ('Rural future network') project will address the multifunctional aspect of rural areas and assess the possible combinations of policies to ensure sustainable and integrated rural development.

The 'Research for the benefit of civil society organisations' instrument is new to FP7. It will be tested by a project on diasporas called INFOCON ('Involving transnational communities - civil society forum on conflicts'). The goal of the project is to see whether diasporas 'import' conflicts from their countries of origin to the host country, or rather help to bring about reconciliation and peace. The project will focus in particular on the role of civil society organisations which represent diasporas, with a view to enabling them to contribute to conflict resolution.

FP7's 'Science in society' (SiS) programme focuses on building an effective and democratic knowledge-based society, by ensuring the integration of scientific and technological developments into European society. Under this first round of funding, 28 projects will receive over €21 million from the framework programme.

One of the focal points of the SiS programme is the role of women in science. The €1 million PRAGES ('Practising gender equality in science') project will compare strategies implemented in Europe and elsewhere for promoting the participation of women in decision-making bodies relating to scientific research.

Encouraging young people to embark on careers in science and technology is the aim of the 'Mind the gap' project, which is set to receive €750,000 from the Commission. The project partners will gather, exchange, develop and share best practices in inquiry-based science teaching (IBST).

Meanwhile the MACOSPOL ('Mapping controversies on science for politics') will create a platform mapping out scientific and technical controversies to allow European citizens to play a greater role in the scientific decision-making process. The EU contribution to the project is €900,000.

Full details of all 93 projects will be made available on the CORDIS website. The budgets of the projects are subject to contract negotiations between the project partners and the European Commission.