Presentation of the IST Work Programme 2000
The Work Programme of the European Commission's Information Society Technologies (IST) Programme for the year 2000 was presented to delegates at the IST99 Conference in Helsinki, Finland, on 24 November 1999. The rationale behind the programme is to accelerate the emergence of the Information Society through both research and policy. With this in mind, the results of the first round of calls for proposal in 1999 were assessed, and consideration was given on how the Work Programme could be modified for the next round of calls. The draft timetable for the three subsequent calls that will be issued in 2000 was given, together with practical information for proposers. A draft of the Work Programme was made available, although it was stressed that proposers should wait until the final version is issued. Robert Verrue, Director General of the Information Society Directorate began the closing plenary session with an examination of EU policy in information society RTD in the broader context and for the future. He was followed by George Metakides, Director of Essential Information Society Technologies and Infrastructures in the Information Society Directorate, who spoke on the Work Programme preparation process. The President of the IST programme's external advisory group ISTAG, Angelo Airaghi, then spoke about his group's contribution. Gerard Comyn, head of unit for Work Programme and Cross-programme themes presented the main orientations and changes of the WP2000 with respect to WP1999, and Khalil Rouhana, Work Programme 2000 coordinator, presented the calls timetable for 2000. Finally Jacques Bus, head of unit for operational aspects of the Work Programme, outlined the guidelines for proposers. At the political level the Commission answers to the Council and Parliament for the way in which the programme is implemented. However Mr Verrue said the IST Programme has and will continue to be formulated with reference to the opinions of Member States delegations, Commission officials responsible for the contents of the programme, ISTAG, and leading European researchers in IST. Projects should be considered a 'partnership with the European Community'. Addressing proposers he said: 'The results of the project will be yours to exploit. All we expect in return is that - just as your consortia benefits from the work - Europe itself will benefit.' The evolving needs of Society should underlie all EU projects, said Mr Verrue. 'As an IST project, you will be encouraged to build up an awareness of your working environment; of other related projects doing similar or complementary work; of related policy initiatives; and of technological or market developments occurring outside the programme. 'Based on this awareness, you may identify synergies and specific opportunities for collaboration that are to the mutual benefit of all concerned. From our perspective, it is precisely these shared opportunities and synergies that will give rise to much of the added-value of European level initiatives such as IST.' The results of the first round for proposals, available on CORDIS (see RCN 13882), were presented by Mr Metakides, who used them to draw conclusions for the Work Programme. He noted an improvement in the evaluation process for proposals, but he said there was still room for improvement. In particular, the whole process should be speeded up. Finally he drew a 'roadmap' for 2000. The second call, which is now open, will close on 15 January. Details of further calls were later given by Khalil Rouhana. To implement the IST programme, a Work Programme is developed and revised each year. It lays out the action lines for calls for proposals and structures them in a way which reflects the nature of the programme and its key actions. Using the draft programme available to delegates as a guide, Gerard Comyn laid out the main features for the 2000 Work Programme. The first key action, systems and services for the citizen, will in future have a stronger focus on advancing state-of-the-art for improved services. The number of RTD action lines has been reduced from 12 to 9, while two new take-up action lines have been introduced for health and transport. For the second key action, new methods of work and electronic commerce, the emphasis will be on the medium to long term. The number of RTD action lines has been reduced from 11 to 7, with two action lines spanning the key action, and two take-up actions identified. Emphasis in key action three, multimedia content and tools, will be placed on natural interaction and the integration of interactive and broadcasting services. A new action line has been introduced for content-processing for domestic and mobile multimedia platforms. In total there will be 11 RTD and 6 take-up action lines. Essential technologies and infrastructures, or key action four, will focus on strengthening infrastructure convergence, giving higher visibility to networked embedded devices, and highlighting the openness of software and systems. For future and emerging technologies there will be two proactive initiatives: the idea of the disappearing computer where the use of interacting artefacts may replace the computer as we know it; and neuroinformatics for living artefacts which will explore new synergies between neurosciences and information technologies. There will also be an open domain to nurture invention, creativity and bright-spark ideas. Research networking will focus on interconnection and advanced experiments including end to end experiments, integration and future networks. The introduction of test beds will be introduced for the cross programme actions, for which seven topics have been suggested: natural interactions and dialogue modes; home environments (ambient intelligence at home); survivability of large scale systems (trust and confidence); mobility (mobile services); next generation networks (convergence of infrastructure); socio-economic analysis (usability, acceptability) and smart cards (seamless services). Khalil Rouhana enlarged on the roadmap outlined by Mr Metakides. The third call for proposals which will open in January or February 2000, closing in March or April, will have a budget of 300 million euro. The action lines opened will be as follows: - KA1: 3RTD + 1 Take-up - KA2: 4RTD - KA3: 7RTD - KA4: 2RTD - CPAs: 2RTD - FET: 1 Pro-active - RN: 3RTD The fourth call, which will open in June 2000 and close in October, will have an expected budget of 450 million euro. The action lines opened will be as follows: - KA1: 6RTD + 1 Take-up - KA2: 3RTD + 5 Take-up/support measures - KA3: 4RTD + 5 Take-up/support measures - KA4: 11RTD + 10 Take-up/support measures - CPAs: 2RTD - FET: 1 Pro-active The fifth call for proposals and the third in 2000 will open in September, with a proposed deadline of December 2000 or January 2001. The budget available for this call will be 200 million euro. The action lines opened will be as follows: - KA2: 1 Support measure - KA3: 2 Take-up/support measures - KA4: 10RTD + 7 Take-up/support measures - CPAs: 2RTD For projects under continuos submission the FET is open. Project clusters, WGs and NoEs, standardisation, training and international cooperation will all be supported under common support activities. Support measures specific to a key action are called under the fixed deadline scheme.