FIFTH FRAMEWORK PROGRAMME for Research and Technological Development (1998-2002)
Commission Working Paper on the Specific Programmes:
Starting Points for Discussion
COM(97) 553
05-11-1997
Creating a user-friendly information society (3)
(ii) ACTIVITIES FOR GENERIC RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT OF TECHNOLOGIES
- "FUTURE AND EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES"
It has been shown that major technology-based industrial and societal advances can arise from unexpected scientific and technological ideas, ideas that were originally treated as curisosities. Few foresaw the importance of the World-Wide Web when it was first developed or, going further back, the industrial impact of lasers when they were "just interesting scientific phenomena".
This specific activity on future and emerging technologies would cover research that is of a longer-term nature or involves particularly high risks - compensated by the promise of major advances and the potential for industrial and societal impact. Such research would typically be either transdisciplinary or in an emerging discipline. It would reinforce the link and flow of ideas, initiatives and people between academia and industry in the EU. This activity complements the domain-specific work integrated in each of the key actions.
To ensure a seamless coverage of the information society technologies the door needs to be kept open to any new idea with a potential industrial or societal impact, in a bottom-up fashion. This openness would need to be reinforced in specific areas with highly focused well-coordinated pro-active initiatives of a strategic nature. Flexibility is essential just as is an appropriate balance between proactive initiatives which need careful, but rapid, planning on the one hand and, on the other hand, openness to new highly promising ideas as they arise.
The Open Domain
By definition the topics addressed cannot be prescribed. Project proposals could include, in a non-prescriptive way, knowledge technologies (covering technologies for the representation, creation and handling of knowledge), technologies for computation- or bandwidth-intensive applications, future devices and circuits (including those based on quantum, photonic or bio-electronic effects and technologies for very large scale integration), and ultra-complex systems (such as ultra-high performance computers and super-intelligent networks).
Proactive Initiatives
Complementing the open domain, a number of proactive initiatives having a strategic perspective and addressing areas of substantial future growth, where close coordination across different projects is necessary, would be defined in the course of the execution of the programme. The definition of topics would be based on their potential for long-term industrial and societal impact (including employment through "start-ups"), on the opportunity offered by scientific advances or a combination of both. The planning of the proactive initiatives would need to make allowance for the necessity to be able to react rapidly if windows of opportunity present themselves unexpectedly through scientific advances.
Initiatives would each consist of a set of autonomous but closely coordinated and appropriately networked projects. The networked nature of the initiative could be reinforced with some central research facilities when these provide economies of scale to the participants of multiple projects. For example, experimental shared nano-fabrication facilities, model spaces or communities for experiments in the areas of interfaces or virtual reality, and so forth.
The actual choices would be made at appropriate times through consultations with the research community, following the setting of an agenda that draws on a very broad body of scientific and technological opinion. In this context, advance knowledge would be sought through a combination of a series of strategic workshops, aimed towards setting trends and research targets, and a technology-watch activity, to be carried out in close cooperation with the JRC's 'Institute for Prospective Studies' and the 'Scientific and Technological Options Assessment' Unit of the European Parliament where appropriate.
(iii) SUPPORT FOR RESEARCH INFRASTRUCTURE
Broadband Interconnection of National Research and Education Networks
The objective would be to facilitate the supply of trans-European broadband interconnections between national research, education and training networks (which are currently fragmented into local islands of connectivity) at capacities and of a quality matching the aggregated need of Europe's academic and industrial researchers and to keep the resulting network at the forefront of the state of the art. This would imply an upgrading of the existing capacity of 34 Mbits/s via 622 Mbits/s to gigabits/s, including support for different levels of 'Quality of Service' and the necessary connectivity to third countries. This would allow effective European collaborative research and education activities (including the creation of "virtual laboratories" and "virtual institutes"), enabled by the deployment of state of the art Internet-based applications within the academic and industrial research communities. This work would support research in all fields and therefore the whole Framework Programme.
Advanced European Experimental Testbeds
The objective would be the integration of leading-edge collaborative research and development, demonstration and take-up activities, from all key actions in this programme, addressing future generations of communication technologies, protocols, services and distributed applications. This experimental interconnection of the testbeds of individual operators, industries, universities and research facilities in Europe (together with necessary connections to third countries) would provide a practical basis for collaborative research efforts (e.g. in photonic networks, service configuration protocols or mobile broadband services). It would also lead to the early availability of the most advanced infrastructure, which would in turn allow for early experiments with advanced applications (e.g. remote high-volume data visualisation, meta-computing or networked immersive virtual reality) requiring very high bandwidth or new services. It would also enable Europe to play a leading role in defining, standardising and validating the next generations of network protocols (including those for the Internet) and other emerging broadband services. It would contribute to the long-term interoperability and seamlessness of advanced network infrastructures, services and applications.
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