Periodic Reporting for period 1 - SWForum.eu (European forum of the software research communit)
Período documentado: 2020-10-01 hasta 2022-03-31
As reported in the EC study “The Economic and Social Impact of Software & Services on Competitiveness and Innovation – (SMART 2015/0015) Final Study Report: “The software industry has a strong economic and social impact throughout the European Union. There is the direct economic contribution from this dynamic industry, its contribution to the wider economy through knowledge spillover and the provision of new technological possibilities, as well as its tremendous effects on society in general.” The contribution of software and the software-based services (SSBS) industry to the EU economy has been increasing in recent years in every dimension (employment, value added, and productivity).
Even though this provides an optimistic landscape, the same study identifies a set of ten barriers in the context of Software Industry that could decrease the growth for the upcoming years:
1. Lack of skills, lack of specialized IT and Internet experts
2. Lack of entrepreneurial spirit
3. Missing supporting services
4. Market fragmentation
5. Status-quo orientation of companies, incl. existing rules and governance structures in IT-using sectors
6. Trust, privacy, security
7. Policy strategies not suited to support ICT innovations
8. Not enough R&D
9. Not enough broadband access
10. Not enough support for open source software
To overcome these shortcomings the European Commission presents in the same study, a set of policy initiatives grouped in three categories, deriving in groups of policy related initiatives 1) for a more dynamic user landscape; 2) for better framework conditions;3) focus on enabling factors. The top 5 policy recommendations are to: enhance eskills
in Europe, support the adoption of ICT in the industry and service sectors, support open source software, increase trust in cloud computing and IT infrastructures, increase public R&D spending in the ICT area. SWForum.eu intends to support the Commission in their initiatives to resolve these impediments through a strong
set of complementary measures that directly and indirectly impact these policy recommendations by:
a) increasing the chances to enhance high level e-skills, bridging the gap between research and industry and contributing to the spread of niche knowledge (cybersecurity, infrastructure, artificial intelligence) between distinct experts promoting cross-fertilization between the areas of software, digital infrastructures, cybersecurity and AI,
b) creating a self-sustainable forum of researchers and practitioners in the software area,
c) providing guidance to the European Initiatives to improve the TRL,
d) enhancing the visibility of European based software technology projects,
e) supporting the Commission policy officers and stakeholders through the creation of the Innovation and research public roadmaps.
The main objective of SWForum.eu is raise awareness and strengthen the competitiveness of the European Software Industry - including the underlying digital infrastructures together with the needed security mechanisms - by facilitating a sustainable European forum for stakeholders representing scientific researchers, providers, developers, operators and policy-makers relevant to software technologies, digital infrastructures and cybersecurity, where assets can be shared (products, services, technologies), lessons learned, and policies developed, and facilitating engagement in the development of a set of research and innovation roadmaps for the Future Secure Digital Continuum through an online platform.
Even though this provides an optimistic landscape, the same study identifies a set of ten barriers in the context of Software Industry that could decrease the growth for the upcoming years:
1. Lack of skills, lack of specialized IT and Internet experts
2. Lack of entrepreneurial spirit
3. Missing supporting services
4. Market fragmentation
5. Status-quo orientation of companies, incl. existing rules and governance structures in IT-using sectors
6. Trust, privacy, security
7. Policy strategies not suited to support ICT innovations
8. Not enough R&D
9. Not enough broadband access
10. Not enough support for open source software
To overcome these shortcomings the European Commission presents in the same study, a set of policy initiatives grouped in three categories, deriving in groups of policy related initiatives 1) for a more dynamic user landscape; 2) for better framework conditions;3) focus on enabling factors. The top 5 policy recommendations are to: enhance eskills
in Europe, support the adoption of ICT in the industry and service sectors, support open source software, increase trust in cloud computing and IT infrastructures, increase public R&D spending in the ICT area. SWForum.eu intends to support the Commission in their initiatives to resolve these impediments through a strong
set of complementary measures that directly and indirectly impact these policy recommendations by:
a) increasing the chances to enhance high level e-skills, bridging the gap between research and industry and contributing to the spread of niche knowledge (cybersecurity, infrastructure, artificial intelligence) between distinct experts promoting cross-fertilization between the areas of software, digital infrastructures, cybersecurity and AI,
b) creating a self-sustainable forum of researchers and practitioners in the software area,
c) providing guidance to the European Initiatives to improve the TRL,
d) enhancing the visibility of European based software technology projects,
e) supporting the Commission policy officers and stakeholders through the creation of the Innovation and research public roadmaps.
The main objective of SWForum.eu is raise awareness and strengthen the competitiveness of the European Software Industry - including the underlying digital infrastructures together with the needed security mechanisms - by facilitating a sustainable European forum for stakeholders representing scientific researchers, providers, developers, operators and policy-makers relevant to software technologies, digital infrastructures and cybersecurity, where assets can be shared (products, services, technologies), lessons learned, and policies developed, and facilitating engagement in the development of a set of research and innovation roadmaps for the Future Secure Digital Continuum through an online platform.
Main achievements for this first period of the project can be summarized as follows:
• Three (online) workshops organized: Two cross-fertilization workshops and One (private) Sustainability Workshop
• Joint forces with relevant stakeholders (other CSAs, EC) to collaborate in events: ESOCC (European Conference on Service-Oriented and Cloud Computing),EC Virtual Event “Digital Autonomy in the Computing Continuum”
• Definition of a project radar taxonomy for software technology projects, included its different dimensions (radar ring, radar segment, blip position, blip colour, blip shape)
• Development and deployment of the first version of the radar aiming at providing an at-a-glance overview of the characteristics of projects from multiple perspectives.
• Populating 52 projects in the radar.
• An online forum (https://swforum.eu/online-sw-forum) where anyone can participate and interact. Closed groups can also been set up
• Project Hub of mini-sites (https://swforum.eu/project-hub) populated with 52 relevant projects and with the new “Project Spotlight” programme
• Organization of two (2) Market and Technology readiness level (MTRL) webinars
• New definition of the strategy SWForum aims at adopting for identifying and involving new fellows in the work of the Forum.
• Sustainability roadmap based on the conclusions from the First Sustainability Workshop.
• A SWForum canvas that aims to provide a first picture of the landscape surrounding SWForum, while at the same time getting initial inputs from stakeholders with the goal of drawing first level conclusions and recommendations from such analysis.
• First version of SWForum.eu Research and Innovation roadmaps
• Three (online) workshops organized: Two cross-fertilization workshops and One (private) Sustainability Workshop
• Joint forces with relevant stakeholders (other CSAs, EC) to collaborate in events: ESOCC (European Conference on Service-Oriented and Cloud Computing),EC Virtual Event “Digital Autonomy in the Computing Continuum”
• Definition of a project radar taxonomy for software technology projects, included its different dimensions (radar ring, radar segment, blip position, blip colour, blip shape)
• Development and deployment of the first version of the radar aiming at providing an at-a-glance overview of the characteristics of projects from multiple perspectives.
• Populating 52 projects in the radar.
• An online forum (https://swforum.eu/online-sw-forum) where anyone can participate and interact. Closed groups can also been set up
• Project Hub of mini-sites (https://swforum.eu/project-hub) populated with 52 relevant projects and with the new “Project Spotlight” programme
• Organization of two (2) Market and Technology readiness level (MTRL) webinars
• New definition of the strategy SWForum aims at adopting for identifying and involving new fellows in the work of the Forum.
• Sustainability roadmap based on the conclusions from the First Sustainability Workshop.
• A SWForum canvas that aims to provide a first picture of the landscape surrounding SWForum, while at the same time getting initial inputs from stakeholders with the goal of drawing first level conclusions and recommendations from such analysis.
• First version of SWForum.eu Research and Innovation roadmaps
SWForum.eu will generate wide-ranging impacts:
- Software technology in the EU is elevated across the broadest possible set of experts with assured coverage of EU priority topics; EU software initiatives are defragmented by ensuring coordination across all major stakeholders including policy-making and regulatory institutions.
- Nurturing and growth of a densely connected ecosystem of European software technology research and development communities.
- Strengthening of the Digital Single Market (DSM), through creation of an innovation roadmap for delivery to EC policy makers, through several iterations of workshops,conferences, etc
- Capacity building of industry players fostering their ability to bring their results to market. It also provides a concrete evaluation measure that helps them to match up to researchers to fill gaps in their readiness levels
- End users potentially joining the community find that they can navigate it quickly and efficiently to find the contacts and the products and services that are most relevant and valuable to them – thus encouraging their continued participationin the community.
- The SWForum.eu community becomes not only a leading-edge Go-To place for expertise on software technologies and infrastructures, but also cross-cutting cybersecurity expertise available and pertinent to all levels of stakeholders, fromlarge industry down to SMEs.
- Software technology in the EU is elevated across the broadest possible set of experts with assured coverage of EU priority topics; EU software initiatives are defragmented by ensuring coordination across all major stakeholders including policy-making and regulatory institutions.
- Nurturing and growth of a densely connected ecosystem of European software technology research and development communities.
- Strengthening of the Digital Single Market (DSM), through creation of an innovation roadmap for delivery to EC policy makers, through several iterations of workshops,conferences, etc
- Capacity building of industry players fostering their ability to bring their results to market. It also provides a concrete evaluation measure that helps them to match up to researchers to fill gaps in their readiness levels
- End users potentially joining the community find that they can navigate it quickly and efficiently to find the contacts and the products and services that are most relevant and valuable to them – thus encouraging their continued participationin the community.
- The SWForum.eu community becomes not only a leading-edge Go-To place for expertise on software technologies and infrastructures, but also cross-cutting cybersecurity expertise available and pertinent to all levels of stakeholders, fromlarge industry down to SMEs.