InterLink Online Public Consultation

The international research community is warmly invited to actively participate in the InterLink open electronic consultation, and to contribute to shape the content and structure of future international R&D activities.

2008 Cor Baayen Award

ERCIM is now accepting nominations for the 2008 Cor Baayen Award. Deadline for nominations: 15 April 2008.

Denmark joins ERCIM

DANAIM (Danish Research Association for Informatics and Mathematics), a research consortium established by seven major Danish universities and university collaborations, has become a member of ERCIM. Denmark is the nineteenth country to join ERCIM.

The infinity Initiative - ICT Research meets Standards

ERCIM and ETSI, the European Telecommunications Standards Institute, have co-signed a landmark Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to launch their future close collaboration.

New Series of InterLink Workshops

The first InterLink Workshop in Eze, France on 10-12 May 2007 offered many insights into the the key technological issues and challenges that are at the heart of the three Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) domains selected for investigation within the InterLink Coordination Action funded by the Future & Emerging Technologies Unit of the European Commission. In bringing together researchers from all corners of the globe to explore the state-of-the-art in these research themes, radical new uses for these technologies can be identified. The second series of workshops is intended to identify specific areas where further research efforts should be concentrated at a European level:

• Ambient computing and communication environments, 5-7 Nov 2007, Eltville-Hattenheim, Germany
• Intelligent and cognitive systems, 15-16 Nov 2007, University of Zurich, Switzerland
• Software intensive systems and new computing paradigms, 3-4 December, Munich, Germany

Cor Baayen Award 2007 for Boris Motik

Boris Motik from University of Oxford, United Kingdom, has been awarded the 2007 Cor Baayen Award for a most promising young researcher in computer science and applied mathematics by ERCIM.

In a tight competition with 17 finalists, ERCIM has awarded Boris Motik for the outstanding quality of his work concerning reasoning algorithms and systems for Description Logics (DLs) - a family of knowledge representation formalisms with applications in numerous areas of computer science. DLs provide the basis for the Web Ontology Language (OWL) - the ontology language defined by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) that has become the de facto standard for ontology development in fields as diverse as geography, geology, astronomy, agriculture and the life sciences. Boris has already made wide ranging contributions to research, including both new theoretical results, and practical systems that promise to change our notion of tractability in ontology reasoning.

MUSCLE, the Network of Excellence on Multimedia, to demonstrated its showcases at IBC2007

Location: Amsterdam, The Netherlands

IBC2007, held in Amsterdam on 6-11 September, is a leading event for the world of multimedia content creation, management and delivery. It is therefore the first choice place for MUSCLE, the EC-sponsored Network of Excellence (NoE) on Multimedia, to demonstrate its showcases featuring highly visual results able to promote the technology towards the Industry.

Opening Workshop of InterLink organized by ERCIM

The first InterLink workshop took place on May 10-12 in Eze, close to Monaco. This workshop brought together all three of InterLink’s working groups set up to address the following thematic areas:

• Software intensive systems and new computing paradigms;
  
• Ambient computing and communication environments;
  
• Intelligent and cognitive systems.
  

Poland joins ERCIM

PLERCIM, the newly created research consortium established by two major Polish universities, the University of Warsaw and the University of Wroclaw, has become a member of the ERCIM European Economic Interest Grouping. Poland is the 18th country to join ERCIM.

ERCIM highlighted in eStrategies Europe

Keith Jeffery, President of ERCIM, was interviewed in the March issue of /eStrategies Europe/, a quarterly publication announcing and publicising the ICT program in Europe. The goal of this issue was widespread exposure and dissemination for select projects. The article presents the unique role of ERCIM and in particular its commitment to work with European industry. It also includes the list of ERCIM running projects.

New ERCIM& Working Group "eMobility"

A new ERCIM Working Group "eMobility" was established in January 2007. The working group aims to develop a strategic basic research agenda and project proposals in the area of eMobility. To complement the activities of the eMobility European Technology Platform (ETP), the working group focusses on more (theoretical) basic research issues.

ERCIM Working Group "Computing and Statistics" renamed

The ERCIM Working Group "Matrix Computations & Statistics" is changing its name to "COMPUTING & STATISTICS". The WG will expand its aims and scopes and attract more members from researchers working in the interface of computing and statistics.

INTERLINK project launched

The Interlink Coordination Action for "International Cooperation Activities in Future and Emerging ICTs" held it's project kick-off in Nice at the Autumn ERCIM Days. The project will create three working groups: "Software intensive systems and new computing paradigms", "Ambient computing and communication environments" and "Intelligent and cognitive systems".

ERCIM members are kindly requested to volunteer some of their very best researchers to take part in the international teams comprising the working groups. Interested parties should contact Antonis Argyros (argyrosics.forth.gr) or Jessica Michel (jessica.michelercim.org). Project web site: http://interlink.ics.forth.gr/

Keith Jeffery relected president

Keith Jeffery, Director for IT at CCLRC, has been reelected ERCIM president for the next 2 years during the bi-annual Board of Directors meeting in Nice, France,in October 2006.
Keith took office as ERCIM president on 1st January 2005.

ERCIM signed Berlin Declaration on Open Access

ERCIM has signed the 'Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities' on 30 October 2006. The Berlin Declaration states that, "Establishing open access as a worthwhile procedure ideally requires the active commitment of each and every individual producer of scientific knowledge and holder of cultural heritage".

New ERCIM Working Group SESAMI

The ERCIM Working Group SESAMI on "Smarts Environments and Systems for Ambient Intelligence" (http://www.ics.forth.gr/sesami/) has been officially formed in mid 2006 and is co-chaired by Anthony Savidis (FORTH) and Norbert Streitz (Fraunhofer). It succeeded in bringing together a selected group of internationally renowned experts in the field, displaying a very good balance of ERCIM and non-ERCIM institutions.