ACTS programme - Third call for proposals

The European Commission, DG XIII, has published the third call for proposals for RTD actions under the specific RTD programme in the field of Advanced Communications Technologies and Services (ACTS). Entities eligible to participate in the programme are invited to submit prop...

The European Commission, DG XIII, has published the third call for proposals for RTD actions under the specific RTD programme in the field of Advanced Communications Technologies and Services (ACTS).

Entities eligible to participate in the programme are invited to submit proposals either for new and innovative work relating to the projects taken up under the first and second calls, or for novel technological work. New and innovative work relating to the projects taken up under the first and second calls should involve:

- Trial integration, bringing together the results of groups of ACTS projects into integrated trials and ensuring a seamless connection of the ACTS community with trial environments on a pan-European basis (including broadband access by schools, providing them with an opportunity to experiment with a range of advanced services);
- Broadening of participation (in particular providing opportunities for organizations in Central and Eastern Europe, in non-EU Mediterranean countries and for SMEs to join existing ACTS projects);
- Guidelines consolidation, condensing and rationalizing draft deployment guidelines into coherent input to standards bodies, industrial fora and the European institutions, including consolidation of strategic techno-economic and socio-economic information;
- Supporting promotion and dissemination of results.

Novel technological work may be supported in the following fields:

- Interactive multimedia services interoperability;
- New concepts and novel devices for routing/switching in optical networks;
- Convergence and integration: ATM-Internet;
- Software radio technologies;
- Advanced technologies and systems for satellite communications and a concerted action on satellite communications;
- An open communications environment, using "agent technologies";
- Secure information exchanges over broadband communications.

RTD actions will be addressed, in general, by way of shared cost actions. Organizations from Central and Eastern Europe may be eligible to have up to 50% of the costs of participation funded by the INCO programme for International Cooperation in R&D.

Proposers should familiarize themselves with the procedure for submission of proposals, details of which may be found in the Information Package. Special software may be obtained from the Commission for those wishing to submit proposals in an electronic format. This software package includes a facility verifying the time and date of proposal submission.
All correspondence concerning this call, including proposals for RTD activities, should be sent to:

European Commission
DG XIII - Telecommunications, information market and exploitation of research
ACTS programme - Directorate B
5 avenue de Beaulieu (BU9 4/82)
B-1160 Brussels
Tel. [phone]; Fax [phone]
E-mail: [e-mail]

The use of electronic mail for correspondence is strongly encouraged.

Full information may also be found on the World Wide Web, on the ACTS homepage, at:

http://www.infowin.org/ACTS/