Long Term Research in ESPRIT in the Perspective of the 5th Framework
Programme
by Jean-Michel Chassériaux
ERCIM has recently been involved in the five-year assessment of ESPRIT,
carried out by a panel of experts led by Roberto Carneiro, former Portuguese
Minister for Education. The report of this panel was part of the raw materials
used by a group of independent experts chaired by Viscount Etienne Davignon,
former Commissioner for research and industry and one of the founding fathers
of ESPRIT, for the five-year assessment of the 5th Framework Programme.
The Davignon report calls for a leap forward as qualitative and fundamental
as the creation of the Framework programme itself. Among other recommendations,
it advocates for a merging of the three Information Technology programmes
ESPRIT, ACTS and Telematics Applications. The report also suggests that
the Commission commits only a part of the budget at the outset allowing
adjustments to be made in the subsequent years. This was one of the recommendations
of ERCIM views on IT in Europe, the preparation of the 5th FP and the revision
of the Maastricht treaty, published in July 1996.
It also notes that the short terms needs of the market have come to
dominate the implementation of the Framework Programme and that achieving
the right balance between fundamental and applied research should be the
responsibility of the specific programmes. Has a proper balance been reached
in the recent past between short term and long term objectives and will
this recommendation be sufficient for making sure that such a balance will
be achieved in the future? At a time when the preparation of the 5th Framework
Programme is getting momentum, the question remains far from being solved,
in particular in the context of the emerging information society.
The information society in a European perspective
Europe has been lagging with respect to the rest of the world in its
way towards the information society (see table). European industry is both
weak in terms of hardware and software products and stagnant in terms of
computer services. Its competitiveness has diminished and the trade deficit
is now of one third of the production.
Table 1: IT markets in 1995
| Geographical zone |
Share of the world IT market |
Growth rate 1994/95 (%) |
| America |
46,7 |
12,2 |
| Western Europe |
27,9 |
7,3 |
| Asia-Pacific |
22,8 |
11,9 |
| Rest of the world |
2,7 |
13,1 |
Table 2: Europe lags behind the USA in the number of PCs in business
and IT investment per employee.
|
PC per 100 office workers |
Investment per employee (ECU) |
| USA |
104 |
681 |
| EU |
72 |
335 |
| Japan |
24 |
563 |
In countries which are still expecting an economic recovery, people
are deeply concerned with such a dramatic change. The question about employment,
exclusion, culture, etc, are more worrying and the low level of investment
has direct consequences on the adoption of the new technologies.
There is no doubt that the only way forward lies in a reconciliation
between the expectations of the citizens and the future prospects of the
information society taking into account the specificity of the European
culture.
The vision of a European information society, able to match traditional
humanistic and social values, is obviously a long term objective. However,
it is essential to satisfy the expectations of the citizens for an improved
quality of life, economic growth and employment in the short-term. Even
if R&D can not deliver an immediate answer to these problems, there
is an increased demand for researchers to work more on the extrapolation
of proven solutions to large-scale operations rather than looking for really
new ones.
A lot can be done with the available technology on the path towards
the information society but many problems still remain and although, in
the short term significant economic gains can be obtained by the direct
use of technology developed elsewhere, in the long term, the exchange of
research results will become indispensable for the acquisition of new knowledge
and it will therefore be necessary to produce one's own results.
Long term research
ESPRIT evolved in its latest phase from a technology-push and pre-competitive
research programme to a technology-take and a market-driven approach and
a full set of accompanying measures has been designed in order to ensure
a good diffusion of the R&D results. Nowadays, the budget allocated
to the accompanying measures is half of that of the R&D projects and
their number is twice as much.
Long Term Research (LTR) is one of the domains of ESPRIT 4. Its objectives
are to ensure that, at any time, the potential for the next wave of innovation
is main-tained. However the main users of this domain ie universities and
research institutes are often complaining about:
- the lack of funds as a result of which a number of good proposals cannot
be funded
- the fact that several promising fields (multimedia, hyperfrequences,
AsGa, etc) are not properly covered
- the small share allocated to purely blue sky research
- the emphasis on industrial relevance so that a commonly found feeling
is, that LTR is increasingly short term oriented.
As one of the key objectives for the fifth FP would be to provide an
effective contribution to the creation of a European Information Society,
more consideration should be give to long term research. The major trends
in society should be better understood. Some embryonic work has already
been done under the umbrella of the socio-economic research programme.
It could be expanded.
The Information Society Forum set up by the European Commission in February
1995 has played a useful role in drawing the attention to the major issues
which Europe will have to face in the near future. This source of idea
should be reflected in the management of the future ICT programme by setting
up an ESPRIT Foresight Board, made of experts coming from various horizons,
in charge of translating major social issues of the European Information
Society into technologies and markets for tomorrow. It should be involved
in the preparation of the rolling work programme.
As the future ICT programme will be more focused, the LTR domain has
to cover all the fields of information and communications technologies.
It should encourage the creativity of individuals and the development of
an entrepreneurial state of mind amongst the researchers while maintaining
its very high standard of scientific excellence.
A distinction should be made between:
- non-market driven Basic Research (which is performed mainly by academia),
fully open to new ideas
- Strategic Research, driven by a vision of the market in the 5-15 years
horizon in which the involvement of industrial partners could be useful
- Emerging Technologies, driven by the anticipated market needs in the
next 3-5 years; the emphasis should be put on radical innovations and the
most promising markets, performed mainly in co-operation between industries
and academia and a high level of risk would be accepted.
These activities could be grouped under the generic name of future and
emerging technologies and their share in the total budget of the future
ICT programme should be altogether of the order of 15%.
Setting up a proper balance between natural preference for the short
term and long term development of economies which above all requires understanding
of the systems and knowledge of the technical tools is of highest importance.
As stressed in the preliminary guidelines for the fifth framework programme:
Europe needs research and research needs Europe, and an increased synergy
between the different players in the information society: researchers,
industry, service providers and users is necessary.
Please contact:
Jean-Michel Chassériaux - INRIA
Tel: +33 1 3963 5303
E-mail: Jean-Michel.Chasseriaux@inria.fr
