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FP6 Strategic Planning Workshop
Brussels, 26-27 April 2001
Future research domains at the frontiers of science and technology: on the road to the 6th FP
REPORT on discussions held in PANEL 4: COMPUTING
- Panel Chair:
- K.Van Rijsbergen, U. Glasgow
- Panel Rapporteur:
- Paul Spirakis, U. Patras
- Panel Members:
- Maria Alpuente, Tech. Univ. of Valencia
- Francois Arlabosse, Framatome
- Ruzena Bajcsy, NSF
- Susanne Biundo, University of Ulm
- Bernardo D’ Auria, University of Salerno
- Lennart Fahlen, SICS
- Dirk Frimout, Tibotec-Virco
- Nicos Karcanias, City University London
- Peter Kennedy, University College Cork
- Gudrun Klinker, Technical Univ. Munich
- Marjo Lipponen, University of Turku
- Luis Moniz Pereira, New University of Lisbon
- Christos Nikolaou, University of Crete
- Marc Overmars, University of Utrecht
- Miriam Reiner, Technion
- Francesca Rossi, University of Padova
1. Introduction
The panel discussed the issue of future research domains in Computing in a thorough and lively manner. The essential points of this report were presented by the rapporteur during the plenary session of the afternoon of April 27/01.
2. The future of fundamental research in Computing: Scientific Issues
The panel unanimously believes that fundamental (basic) Research in Science and Technology (and especially in Computing) will be of even more vital importance in the years to come. This is so because:
- The findings of science and technology rapidly create a new reality arising from the integration of the synthetic world (cyberspace) and the real world. This reality manifests itself in the form of global, complex systems with huge, distributed data and trillions of entities (human and intelligent software) and their interactions. Future Science will be conducted largely in the Computer (e-Science) and Computing underpins every other discipline.
- We are therefore facing a new crisis. Not only the crisis in software (lack of appropriate software) noted in the US PITAC Report, http://www.itrd.gov/ac/pitac_it2_review.pdf is deepening, but it is aggravated by a radical increase in complexity in all fields and in the insufficiency of trust in the new systems and interactions.
The panel, therefore, clearly distinguishes the following phenomena of great importance and in great need of Foundational Research:- Complexity which comes from the vastness and the combinatorial explosion of data and interactions of entities. This is an issue faced by all scientific fields.
- The enormous and continuous creation and accumulation of data, in a distributed way, and the pressing need to extract information from data and then convert it into Knowledge.
- The barriers that the Turing-Post-Church Computational Model still places on Computation.
These areas create new grand challenges of high priority and importance. Of course, the panel recognises the importance of the open character of basic research, since this can produce the unexpected, and believes that basic research in Europe must still retain its open character. However, scientists cannot ignore the prime importance of some grand challenges that the above-named phenomena are posing:
- How to cope with Complexity (new theories, methods of approximation and of control).
- How to cope with Global Systems of vast interactions, non-linearities, imprecise knowledge, cooperation and antagonism.
- How to cope with data explosion (need for a scalable, new semantics of information derived from data).
- In view of the synthetic world in front of us, eventually, how to reconstruct reality!
The Panel also notes that some of the grand challenges of the past are still unsolved and become even more critical. Such are e.g. the issue of combinatorial explosion versus effective computation (e.g. the P vs NP question) and the issue of understanding and enhancing the intelligence of machines.
To meet these challenges, the Panel feels that the following research foci are important:
- The further development of speculative new ways of computing (DNA, quantum, optical) on a sound foundational basis. Scientists should take best advantage of the new capabilities of the physical substrate to tune their algorithms, methods, understanding and software. "Physics is Computational".
- The need to shed more light on the signal to symbol translation process, which is ill-defined and becomes more critical due to the vast collection of signals.
- A new role for Artificial Intelligence in handling vast and chaotic data (possibly through a scalable semantical approach to information).
- Approaches to Computational Thought that are both integrated in the sense of combining various ways of conceptualising, deducing, reasoning, etc and are situated in that they reflect particular types of application (e.g. software agents vs hardware robots).
- To rethink the algorithmic approach, architecture design and formal methods, so that the issues of tolerance, trust, cooperation, antagonism and control of such complex global systems are taken into account.
The Panel notes that the above examples of grand challenges and research highlights will drastically affect the tools and methods of Computing. Thus, further and intensive research is needed on algorithms, semantics and AI in order to facilitate the analysis and design in the new computing environment in front of us. Critical characteristics here are the new forms of parallelism, the distributed nature, multi-entities interaction, antagonism and data explosion.
3. The organisation of future fundamental research in Europe
- The Panel points out the enhanced role of interdisciplinarity in the new forms of foundational research. In this respect, future Computing Scientists should be educated well in Continuous Mathematics (as well as Discrete) and in computational aspects of the physical domain.
- The Panel observes that the current way of administering basic research creates much overhead and therefore costs and loss of time. The Panel proposes a shift of the "contract" way of handling basic research to the "research grants" method, of less checks but a more proactive perspective. The Panel feels that, in the past, despite the good name of basic research administration in Europe, the best people were discouraged to participate, due to the non-scientific overheads involved.
- The Panel stresses the need for methods which enhance the continuity of research teams and the natural incorporation of younger researchers. Longer-term contracts or grants can help on this front.
- The Panel observes the weakness and shortcomings of national-level foundational research. There are examples where local management conflicts with research involvement. Also, the need for interdisciplinarity of research and the need for a structured critical mass to confront the global complex aspects, emphasise the need for foundational research coordination at a European (and even worldwide) scale!
- The Panel feels that a meeting in Brussels should be organised, with participation of decision-makers on a European scale, from research and industry, in order to create a common understanding of the dramatic need to strengthen foundational European research.
- The points discussed above justify a focused organisational approach to the European management of foundational research: namely, the approach of a separate managing entity in the 6th Framework (as FET was in the 5th) with a separate budget and administration methods. This is essential not only because of the critical role of basic research for the European future, but also because of the special character of the ways to conduct such research in order to flourish.
- The Panel also points out that the credible professional European organisations of basic researchers should be consulted in the process of further refinements in the way to proceed.
- Finally, the Panel points out the usefulness of such strategic meetings and notes that all the panel members are willing for further consultation.