Information Society Programme Support for Research Infrastructure
by Jean-Pierre Euzen
The European Commission has been
proactive in the area of Research Networking for many years with the support
to an International X25 Interconnection (IXI) in the early '90s, to EuropaNET
established in 1993 as a 2 Mbit/s IP interconnection, and to TEN-34 which
currently provides trans-European IP and ATM high speed interconnectivity
between the EU national research networks and beyond. In addition, several
other actions are addressing experiments on high-speed networks and developments
of advanced applications for distributed group work.
In order to reflect the increased relations between information and
telecommunication technologies, the previous Information Technologies,
Advanced Communications Technologies and Services and Telematics Applications
of Common Interest programmes have been merged in the Vth Framework Programme
into one single Information Society Technologies (IST) programme which
aims at realizing the benefits of the information society in Europe both
by accelerating the emergence of this society and by ensuring that the
needs of individuals and enterprises are met by the new technologies and
services.
If a cohesive European approach towards collaborative research and education
in the 21st century is to be achieved, a pan European network is required
that is capable of supporting all research needs, and of keeping pace with
these as they evolve in the future. Such a network shall be 'state of the
art', as measured against the technologies used, capacities and qualities
of service provided by the most advanced national networks in Europe, and
with respect to similar facilities in the US and Japan. A specific action
dealing with research networking has thus been defined in the IST programme.
The first objective of this action is to ensure that European industrial
and academic collaborative research and education can benefit from existing
and emerging applications and services building on broadband networks.
There are large investments being made within the Member States to improve
national facilities; interconnectivity at the European level should match
these efforts. Another objective of the research networking action is
to bring together a critical mass of European actors from industry and
academia in the development of future Internet technologies, services and
applications by establishing world leading broadband networking testbeds
with European coverage. This will be essential for the conduct of leading
edge RTD activities in the Key Actions of the Programme.
The EU policy for research networking has been developed in co-operation
with the Member-States so that collaborative academic and industrial research
in all research domains will benefit from the possibilities of emerging
multi-media services to support tele-collaboration, access to knowledge
and remote access to expensive or unique research facilities and databases,
thus enabling the creation of the 'global research village' and 'virtual
laboratories'. The higher education community will also be able to use
advanced tools and services across Europe to support the introduction of
virtual universities and enable cost-effective distance learning and access
to high quality content from a number of European sources. The action will
also result in wider downstream benefits to the rest of society since the
leading edge users in academic and industrial research and education will
collaborate with service and equipment suppliers and network operators
to provide future Internet standards and technologies, and validate future
tools and services, which will then become accessible to the rest of society.
Please contact:
Jean-Pierre Euzen - European Commission DGXIII - Telematics
Tel: +32 2 296 3447
E-mail: jean_pierre.euzen@bxl.dg13.cec.be
