The Consortium held their monthly Consortium meeting in Paris on 8th May 2008. The Consortium members were joined by 4 academics.

Mango, Tessella and Insightful were invited to present their proof of concepts. The demonstrations were successful in determining the feasibility of the framework concept and how the interoperability frawework could be promoted in the whole community.

Leon provided helpful feedback from his attendance at the IMI Information Day in Brussels on 30-Apr-2008.

David Koubi from Finovatis described the different types of EU funding available and highlighted the most suitable ones. He put forward the opportunities and risks of each type and explained what services Finovatis could offer the Consortium.

Following David's particularly informative presentation, the Consortium decided to focus efforts on the pursuit of IMI funding in the January 2009 Call.

The scope of the initial application for IMI funding will be limited to the development of the framework only. Modules that can be plugged into the framework will be developed at a later date.

The NLMEc will continue activities until October 2008 at which point it will be known whether there is a suitable topic in the January 2009 Call. If there is, and the Consortium is invited to submit a proposal, Consortium activities would be continue to January.

An alternative channel of EU funding is FP7 Capacities – Infrastructure which will also be investigated.

Shortly, the Standards document version 1.0 will be published into the public domain and comments will be invited. Following its publication, there is no requirement to develop M&SML Standards further until it is known whether funding will be granted. Therefore, the Standards will be 'put on ice' until October 2008. The Standards Working Group will re-form to resume work on the Standards if funding is successful.

The Consortium will no longer be hosting a Symposium during the afternoon of Monday 16^th June. It has been moved to a 2 hour mini-symposium during the evening of Tuesday 17^th June. It was felt that a shorter, informal, relaxed event with aperitifs on the Tuesday evening would provide a better forum for promoting the goals of the Consortium, and would attract more people. The aim of the event will be to inform everyone about the NLMEc goals, activities and desire for EU funding, and to get endorsement from EFPIA companies.