Find the most recent information on EU Funding activities in the field of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) by visiting our ICT in FP7 website, which covers ICT in the 7th Framework Programme (FP7) 2007 - 2013.
Find the most recent information on Future and Emerging Technologies activities in
the 7th Framework Programme 2007-2013 on our FET Proactive - FET Open Web sites.
FP7 Workshop
New Directions for ICTs in FP7: Grand challenges for basic research
Expert's views on basic research and FET in FP7
You can find below the 4 questions that were asked and further down the list of experts and their opinion.(alphabetical order).
Questions asked
- Question 1:
- Nowadays the general value of increasing knowledge and the importance of basic research for economic and social development is fully recognised. How do you see basic research in the future?
- Question 2:
- In particular, how do you see collaborative basic research evolving in FP7?
- Question 3:
- How would you see the role of the IST activity dealing with Future and Emerging Technologies in FP7?
- Question 4:
- We would like you to make a short comment concerning FET's role and activities. (Where do you think is the added value, if any, of FET's activities?)
Experts
- Mark Buchanan Mark
- Henrik Christensen
- James Crowley
- Yves Demazeau
- Olivier Faugeras
- Ian Phillips
- Tamas Roska
- Arne Solveberg
- Clivia Sotomayor-Torres
- Paul Spirakis
- Mateo Valero
- Keith Van Rijsbergen
- Wolfgang Wahlster
Mark Buchanan - Nature (US)
Q1. I think that basic research will be increasingly important in the future. But two areas in particular will grow in relevance. One area is biology and the other is the use of computer models to understand social systems, markets, and communities, and how people interact. The scientific understanding of social systems is going to leap forward in the near future.
Q2. Collaboration between disciplines has never been more important. We are beginning to see that many of the boundaries of disciplines are artificial, and that the most important real world problems do not respect those boundaries.
Qs 3&4. Research in future and emerging technologies is supposed to be really visionary, looking far down the road. Because technology is developing so rapidly, strategic research initiatives based on long-range foresight will become more important.
Henrik Christensen - Centre for Autonomous Systems, Kungl Tekniska Hogskolan (SE)
Q1. I see basic research as two avenues. (First avenue) as addressing fundamental problems in terms of really generating new knowledge that we might anticipate and (second avenue) as addressing some of the issues that are longer-term. For instance, we know that we are going to have a significant ageing in Europe, which is going to change dramatically our workplace, it is going to change dramatically the way we live. These are issues that are normally not addressed as regular research programmes. But here there is actually an opportunity to address these much more long-term issues.
Q2. I think collaborative research will develop along two models. So, one of them is that we will set up these projects of well defined excellence. It will be the best in Europe, because from the European point of view it should really be something that addresses the European issues rather than the national issues. And then I see it as networks. So, it will be important to bring together entire communities to address some of these issues. So, for that we will need to have sort of networks of excellence or alliances of excellence, where we will try to bring together the best possible resources.
Q3. The IT will become pervasive in the sense that we will have it everywhere; everything will basically have an internet address. So, in that sense technology is very pervasive and to do this we need to integrate materials, people, and IT people. And then we have to think if the funding will be important in terms of having the back-up money to use for truly excellence or will be important in terms of having another type of money to use, in order to bring together the different projects.
Q4. FET is very important in being able to bring new veldt, whilst if you look at the other recent programmes, they are very much along directions we know and show promise. FET is about breaking into new areas. It is about generating the quantum leap that could not be anticipated.
James Crowley - Institute National Polytechnique de Grenoble - Laboratoire Gravir (FR)
Q1. I am not sure that the economic value of basic research is fully recognised. Talking with colleagues who have nothing to do with research, they are often very skeptical about the social value of putting money in research, especially basic research. They understand
the implications of biological research to health, but they do not understand more abstract fundamental research. Beyond that I strongly believe in the general value of increasing knowledge and the importance of basic research. But simply generating the knowledge does not provide all the impacts because beyond generating new knowledge we also have to generate technologies that use that new knowledge, and we have to find ways to bring these technologies to the market. All of this requires effort, perseverance and requires that the legal and financial climate is well structured.
Q2. Science has always been collaborative and competitive. Established scientifique communities define their problems and then people compete in solving the problems. Domains which are not so well established have a difficult time
to agree on the problems and difficulty to agree on what constitutes success or failure. When the community is not well formed, it is very important to have support for cooperative research. For established scientifique domains cooperative research in Europe, in my perspective, was more a political goal of getting the countries to unify their research
communities. As the research communities have become unified, it is reasonable to move towards a funding model which allows individual teams to acquire the infrastructure they need to do the research.
Qs 3&4. Future and Emerging Technologies have always been an important
aspect of IST from the early days of ESPRIT and the FP 3 "Basic Research Actions".
It is indeed the long-range perspective part of IST. It is the place where new ideas can be generated, particularly through the open programme. And this is normally the perspective of FET.
Yves Demazeau - CNRS, Equipe MAGMA (Syste`mes Multi-Agents), INPG (FR)
Q1. I think that basic research has always been the ground of every kind of research... And research is important, simply because it increases knowledge.
Q2. In order to choose either collaborative or individual research we have to define some thematic areas. We could then suggest some relevant disciplines to address these areas and answer great challenges. So, first we have to define some vision and then to come up with the proper answer of what kind of research is more appropriate (collaborative or individual).
Q3. I think that there are two tendencies. The natural tendency is to defend the idea that IST is a discipline by its own but at the same time we need to realise that this discipline has well matured now and it is already serving many other disciplines. So, when you discuss about research in IST then I presume it means how far basic research can accompany this connection of IST into the social life. In particular I think that the inter-tuning between IST and the social life is very important. So, probably it is the time for IST to serve the user, not simply to be used by people.
Q4. The difficult thing is to demonstrate to people about the effective research and a big problem is how to promote the research. For example, you have very nice FET projects which have got very nice results and you would like them to be more visible to the community. So, it might be some duty by the Industrialists and the risk capital to grasp the results and promote them.
Olivier Faugeras - ODYSSEE Laboratory, INRIA Sophia Antipolis (FR)
Q3. I think IST should be supporting and funding and funding the EC governments to create multi-national virtual laboratories.
Q4. I think it is very important to keep long-term research active in Europe, especially since in other areas of the world
such as the US and Japan long-term research is really well supported. Europe should be present
in this competition and FET could be one of the means to achieve this goal.
Ian Phillips - ARM (UK)
Q1. I think one of the problems we have with basic research at the moment is that for too long we did not give enough attention to it. Research is a pipe line. You have to invest into the pipe line and you can expect to get returns at various stages along the way. There has been a bit of a shortage of investments in research, which means, the pipe line is drying up. If we invest more in research today, then the results we can expect are going to be of minimum 10 years away may be in some instances even 30 years away. So, this gap is a problem. So we need to invest in basic research and to invest in strategic research; but we also need to invest in tactical research, research which can be applied in the shorter term.
Q2. Collaboration is very valuable. I am focusing on the relationship between industry and academia, to achieve results. The difficultly that industry has with collaboration is that it is a money making machine. It is there to make money; it is not there to look at advanced techniques or to work with people about exotic futures. It can divert a small percentage of its revenue into things which are medium term. But it really has difficulty in thinking beyond about two years. Partnering therefore is very difficult, because industry is focused on its products, not on research. Partnering with industry is possible and it does happen, but once you move into the domain of the funded projects it gets difficult; sadly a lot of companies that are involved in such project are there for the money, not for anything else. They are there because they can get a financial return out of a funded project that they could not get, if they had just a working relationship. So, the priority tends to be driven by the money, not the search for the technical objectives. The partnerships that matter are the partnerships which are necessary; they are independent to the financial support!
... A similar situation applies to the academic circles.
It is very difficult to partner on basic research, because by its nature it is an island, which does not even connect to (business) reality. It is something that an academic believes is worth exploring... Partnering for basic research happens indirectly via conferences and technical publications, because the people who are involved in that area communicate with one another. They are few in number all around the world; they talk to one another about their experiences.
So, in summary when you bring industry and academics (or research organisations) together in a partnership, then an opportunity does exist. But industry has the problem that it cannot really see research tasks (because they are too far away from exploitation); and research on the other hand cannot see industry needs, (because they are not focused on applications). And I think that when you just put those two groups together in the same room, unless they very clearly understand the relationships between one another, then it is, destine d to fail.
To conclude. Industry exists in a changing world and the products that we will be developing will be very different to the products we have today, we need good quality research to deliver that product.
Q4. I think the approach is right. One of the things that I am not surprised by, but I am still disappointed by, is that the objectives of research and the needs of future industry are disconnected. And I think we have to do a lot more to bring those two together. FET has some prospect to helping with that. I do not know how successful it will be, we will have to wait and see.
Tamas Roska - MTA Sztaki, Member of Hungarian Academy of Sciences (HU)
Q1. I think that especially today basic research should be considered in the context of the innovation process of science and technology. So, I think the challenge is how to bridge the gap between basic research and innovation and how Europeans can be competitive in the US. In the fields of Information technology and Biotechnology and at their crossroads, basic research is a fundamental need, however, its immediate application needs a close collaboration with Development and business partners.
Q2. I do think that most probably we have to figure out how new structures or new organisational forms can be introduced, so that we will become more competitive. I see two or three major issues: 1) how to attract the best minds or keep the best minds in Europe, 2) how to include the centres of excellence or key researchers in the new Member States, 3) there are also a couple of not predictable issues. That means we have to be aware of the fact that all major new discoveries in basic research and in innovation are mostly unpredictable. A drastic decrease of bureaucracy is inevitable, as well as 'an affirmative action' for the new 10 countries for 5 years.
Q3. I think that we have to open the door in IST to more multidisciplinary participation. Namely a key issue is the interplay between life sciences and technical sciences. In particular my field of interest is the so-called info bionics or bionics, the crossing point between information technologies and biotechnologies. This might be one of the major challenges not only for the basic research but also for technologies. Probably after ten years, a lot of new brand products and services that will be on the market, will be founded or will be researched at the meeting point of information and biotechnologies. After so many years of supporting IST, I do think that FET budget should be increased and the others decreased. However, more efforts are needed on life sciences and Bionics/Infobionics.
Q4. I think the FET activities are absolutely important, because in addition to the very specific and very important thematic areas the FET Unit is really open to the unpredictable developments and also sometimes to high risk or sometimes to forefront research. I think FET should keep this legacy and FET should invent new groups, new talents and new ways of collaboration which will be much more pro active. Last but not least, FET should decrease this terrible bureaucracy, because for sure researchers in Europe have also other ways to get funded and to avoid the EU bureaucracy. FET has made a major impact, however, a more diverse scope could help a lot. In addition, a follow-up evaluation is needed, to measure the impact of works and groups that has long been funded.
Arne Solveberg -Faculty of Information Technology, Mathematics and Electrical Engineering, the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NO)
Q1. I see basic research as an enabler of a good education. One of the most important issues is that the results (of research) are disseminated into the population, into industry, into the public sphere, as fast as possible. We live in times of unprecedented change. The pace of change is
critically dependent on people's ability to think and react otherwise today than what they did yesterday. Unless we educate the young people with the most recent knowledge, we will continue to develop yesterday's products for tomorrow's markets and we will fail.
Q2. I am a great believer of collaboration. I think science is in itself international, it has always been international, and this international component will strengthen the collaboration itself. On the other hand, people who make it well in basic research, often also
have very big egos. This may sometimes make effective collaboration difficult to achieve while keeping the quality of research at the highest level.
Q3. I think IST, the information society technologies, are key drivers for creating all kinds of future technologies. I think it will be very desirable if IST changes its objectives a little bit, to have a more long-term view. IST should put more emphasis on creating generic
technologies which can be used in many different domains.
Clivia Sotomayor-Torres - NMRC, (IE)
Q1. Basic research is, in my opinion, the pool out of which ideas and innovations come about, partly from cross-fertilization, in a continuous spontaneous manner but also in a coordinated way. Sometimes it is difficult to read the "crystal ball" to foresee the areas where innovations will occur and in this sense, it is impotent to have young minds coming into research to explore the frontiers of knowledge without the prejudices, which people working for a long time in a field may have developed.
Q2. I see collaboration in FP7 as joint work among people who respect each other scientifically and as people who can get along. I emphasize people rather than institutions, since it is among those who develop a synergy and a certain common attitude of public duty in research that work probably proceeds harmoniously. The research culture needs to become in a small part, homogeneous, at least at the operational level. Here, there is much work to be done at the institution's level.
Q3. In general IST is the natural home for most of the research activities in Information and Communication Technologies. It is encouraging to see that these activities also have been linked up to social responsibility. I think that IST plays a role that is unique.
Q4. What I like about FET is its breath of vision and the variety of activities and objectives. These make the programme FET very attractive. Taking part in it allows you to meet other colleagues with different scientific perspectives, for example in tackling one of the challenges posed in pro-active actions. In this way I feel one begins to realise the potentials of the European research area. Personally, I find this extremely encouraging.
Paul Spirakis - CTI, Member of ISTAG (EL)
Q1. I think that societies recognise and should recognise more that basic research is very critical for technology and also for society. It is the only place in research that we can see a little bit more far away, where we can discuss alternative approaches that are not yet implemented, where we can discuss models of future systems and sometimes discuss even approaches that have very low possibility today and may become very important in the future. And also that all the discussions concerning basic research are precise and that this is a guarantee that whatever concept emerges will be a concept that is validated.
Q2. I think collaborative research is very important. The evolution of technology requires people of different fields and different talents to sit together. So, this implies collaboration. Also, I would say the obvious, that if a lot of people sit down together from different parts of Europe then the result will be bigger than everybody is thinking alone. So, I am very much in favour of collaborative research.
Qs 3&4. Till the current Framework Programme IST was the place of dealing with computing and communication technology. If the importance of basic research is widely recognised, then the importance of FET also should increase. Therefore, I think that the role of FET will be more crucial in the future. It should remain as a structure but its budget should increase.
Mateo Valero - Polytechnic University of Catalunya (ES)
Q1. In the future at the European level we need to promote basic research, because to me is the only way to continue being proactive, being important in the world. The problem is which will be the topics to deal with, and then how to organise this basic research.
Q2. I think that in any kind of research what counts are the resources. So, I cannot say what kind of research - either collaborative or individual - should be contemplated in the basic research in Europe. You know, for instance, that in the USA they are financing mainly individual research, but now they realise that for many topics, it is much more important to have people with different skills, to have interdisciplinary research.
Q3. I will not distinguish between good and bad research. What makes the difference is when we are going to apply the research. So, I think it is very clear that IST was devoted mostly to short- and medium-term research. FET was the only part of the programme contemplating in basic research. I would like FET in the future to have more money and contemplate in more topics, because with the money they have now they cannot contemplate in all areas of basic research.
Q4. I think that FET is the only programme we have that deals with basic research in IST. So, FET needs to open to more important topics. It should launch new topics like embedded architecture and compilers. I think this is very important, because until now in Europe we have very good companies, quite good market in the worldwide level, but I think that if we do not do basic research from now, we will loose this market by sure.
Keith Van Rijsbergen - FRSE, University of Glasgow, Department of Computing Science, Member of ISTAG (UK)
Q1. I think that the importance of basic research, in the context of ICT will increase, because there are a large number of problems that people are now facing, which really can only be solved effectively with IT solutions.
Q2. The collaborative research in some ways is becoming more difficult, because of the nature of the interaction with the Commission, the increased bureaucracy and also the increased political lobbying that goes on. So, I see that collaborative research is getting harder to bring about.
Q3. FET is really a sort of a label for collaborative basic research, which involves sometimes companies, sometimes not. So, the role of IST is neutral in some ways, because I mean FET is actually one of the activities that concentrate on basic research in the context of the IST Programme. So, in other words, FET sits inside IST.
Q4. My personal opinion about FET is related to the transformations that FET is going through. I have always thought that one of the strengths of the Framework programmes was exactly the FET projects, because they actually kept the door open to innovation and original thinking.
Wolfgang Wahlster - CEO-DFKI, Member of ISTAG (DE)
Q1. I believe that basic research should be viewed in the context of innovation-oriented research. Fundamental research and application-oriented research must be tightly integrated in innovation clusters with a clear strategic mission to meet the grand challenges of IST. Basic research is the yeast and not just the cream for backing the cake of our IT future in Europe.
Q2. I think that distributed collaborative research is okay, but that we need more physical centers of excellence in Europe. In addition, collaboration should be an option but not a prerequisite for funding basic research. For top-notch research we need an international evaluation and peer review by the leading scientists world-wide. We should spend more money to find out who are the best researchers for a particular topic in Europe.