Studies relating to the IST programme
The Information Society Directorate General has announced an open call for tenders for studies related to its Information Society Technologies (IST) programme, part of the Commission's Fifth RTD Framework programme. 'The quality of IST related developments in the European Union depend largely on the relevant industry involved in this area and its graduate personnel,' says the Information Society DG. 'Therefore simulation of initiatives supporting improvement of these human resources is a key to keeping the process of progress going. This can be achieved in particular through an optimised and interrelated use of existing non-public training infrastructures.' To promote such initiatives, the Commission now requires information about in-house training activities of the above mentioned IST-sector industries. The objective to the study is to identify existing training infrastructures being run by companies belonging to the EU IT sector and to provide detailed data about their training practices, on the needs they strive to satisfy, on their results and on the scalability of their actions. The overall study aims to identify training schemes and/or infrastructures being run by IT companies, and to provide training at graduate and/or post-graduate level. Therefore it is required to: - establish an inventory of such companies, identify the objectives of such schemes and the specific skills developed; - make an inventory about existing cooperations between different organisations' schemes. Eight studies will be carried out in eight lots for various groups of countries, and one service contract relating to the coordination of the studies concerning the above mentioned eight lots. - Lot 1: Greece; - Lot 2: Spain and Portugal; - Lot 3: Italy; - Lot 4: Austria and Germany; - Lot 5: France; - Lot 6: Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands; - Lot 7: Ireland and Great Britain; - Lit 8: Denmark, Finland and Sweden; - Lot 9: Coordination of the lots and synthesis (for assuming the coordination of the eight named lots). Tenderers may submit bids for one or more lots, except for lot nine, which will have to be carried out by an organisation not involved in work related to lots one to eight. However bids have to be made separately for all individual lots. For further information, please contact: European Commission Directorate-General Information Society Division F5, BU 33 - 4/39 Rue de la Loi/Wetstraat 200 B-1049 Brussels E-mail: Jupp.Hamacher@ec.europa.eu Fax +32-2-2968554