ERCIM and "Beyond-The-Horizon" - A winning pool of expertise

ERCIM (the European Research Consortium for Informatics and Mathematics) is very proud to announce that the winner of this year's Nobel Prize in Physics, Dr. Albert Fert, was an expert involved in the "Beyond-The-Horizon" (BTH) project jointly handled by ERCIM and FORTH (Institute of Computer Science, Greece).

The aim of this European coordination action was to identify ICT-related research trends and strategic areas that require support. It was funded by IST-FET, the Future and Emerging Technologies activity of the EU Information Society Programme.

Dr. Fert, who is a Professor of Physics at the Université Paris-Sud, gave an enlightening talk on the subject of spintronics at the "Nanoelectronics and Nanotechnology" BTH workshop held in Brussels in October 2005. As stated by Keith Jeffery, the President of ERCIM, “We are honoured to have been associated with Dr. Fert in this way and we are pleased that these workshops really focused onto a technology area the best in Europe.”

In addition, in a recent conference of European Computer Science Department Chairs, Wolfgang Boch, head of unit of FET, presented the FET programme and acknowledged the BTH project as the major source of innovative proposals for future proactive initiatives.

For Wolfgang Boch, "The BTH process has mobilised a wide and multi-disciplinary community providing input at all levels -individual, research groups, institutions as well as funding agencies- to the benefit of the future European Information Society".

The "Beyond-The-Horizon" outcome
A well-defined, extensive and systematic consultation of science and technology communities in Europe has led to roadmaps for six strategic research areas, describing the routes research should take in order to meet the emerging grand challenges.

These areas are:
- Pervasive computing and communications;
- Nanoelectronics and nanotechnologies;
- Security, dependability and trust;
- Bio-ICT synergies;
- Intelligent and cognitive systems;
- Software intensive systems.

As additional material the report also includes the following strategic areas:
- Quantum information Processing and Communication;
- Complex Systems;
- Tera-device Computing.

The BTH booklet is available online at http://www.ercim.org/images/stories/pub/BTH-booklet.pdf

And the full report at http://www.beyond-the-horizon.net/central.aspx?sId=29I88I204I323I118338

Contact: [e-mail]

Countries

Austria, Belgium, Czechia, Germany, Denmark, Estonia, Greece, Spain, Finland, France, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Latvia, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Sweden, Slovenia, Slovakia, United Kingdom