An agreement bringing together EIT ICT Labs of the European Institute of Innovation and Technology and the EU’s Future Internet Public-Private Partnership (FI-PPP) will be signed on 21 June in the presence of Neelie Kroes, European Commission Vice-President for Digital Agenda, and Androulla Vassiliou, Commissioner for Education, Culture, Multilingualism and Youth.
The Memorandum of Collaboration lays down the principles for future collaboration between the two European initiatives aiming at building stronger synergies between research, innovation and education in the ICT sector. Aligning efforts and expertise in this way will generate important network effects, meaning more start-ups, more patents and more economic growth for Europe.
“This agreement is a perfect example of the cooperation we want to develop between the EIT and other initiatives within Horizon 2020, the new EU programme for research and innovation. Combining EIT ICT Labs’ talent and knowledge with the firepower of Future Internet PPP will enable us to deliver more effective results and to inspire the entrepreneurial leaders of tomorrow”, says Commissioner Androulla Vassiliou.
EIT ICT Labs is one of the Institute’s three ‘knowledge and innovation communities’, which bring together top universities and research institutes with leading businesses across Europe, while the Future Internet PPP promotes the development of European-scale platforms for smart systems in areas such as transport, health and energy.
“ICT is a driver for economic growth and increased quality of life. As ICT innovation players at the European level EIT ICT Labs and the Future Internet PPP join forces to bring these benefits to European citizens. EIT ICT Labs is proud to bring its ICT education and innovation skills to the table to jointly with the FI-PPP drive the uptake of future Internet technologies and services.” says Prof. Willem Jonker, CEO of EIT ICT Labs.
Mikko Riepula, Project Manager for the FI PPP support action CONCORD, further comments, “Within FI PPP and EIT ICT Labs we both cover a multitude of shared objectives and have considerable diversity through the numerous projects and approaches conducive to innovation as such. Now it is time also to seek synergies and get aligned, both initiatives being such major investments in the European scale.”
The Future Internet PPP and EIT ICT Labs will focus on ICT infrastructure, entrepreneurship, business development, education and training. The agreement will also enable both parties to build on the results of Future Internet PPP projects in an effective way. The signing ceremony takes place in the Berlaymont offices of Vice-president Kroes in presence of Commissioner Vassiliou. The Memorandum of Collaboration will be signed by Prof Willem Jonker, CEO EIT ICT Labs and a sample of legal representatives of the 154 participants in the Future Internet PPP, at the ceremony.
To find out more:
DG Education and Culture: http://ec.europa.eu/dgs/education_culture/index_en.htm
Commissioner Vassiliou’s website: http://ec.europa.eu/commission_2010-2014/vassiliou/index_en.htm
Twitter@VassiliouEU: https://twitter.com/#!/@VassiliouEU
EIT ICT Labs: www.eit.ictlabs.eu
Future Internet: /
Contacts European Commission: Dennis Abbott: +32 2295 9258, Dina Avraam: +32 2295 9667, Ryan Heath: +32 2296 1716, Linda Cain +32 2299 9019
Contact EIT ICT Labs: Johanna Gavefalk, email: [email protected]
Overall Participation at Signing Ceremony:
- Commission DG CONNECT:
- Neelie Kroes, Commission Vice-president for the Digital Agenda
- Zoran Stančič, Deputy Director General of CONNECT
- Jesus Villasante, Head of Unit of CONNECT.E3 “Net Innovation”
- Commission DG EAC:
- Androulla Vassiliou, Commissioner for Education, Culture, Multilingualism, Sport, Media and Youth
- Xavier Prats Monné, Deputy Direct General of EAC
- Lucia Ricalde, Head of Unit of EAC.C2 “European Institute of Innovation and Technology; economic partnerships”
- EIT ICT Labs:
- Willem Jonker, CEO EIT ICT Labs
- Martti Mäntylä, CSO EIT ICT Labs
- Klaus Beetz, Business Director EIT ICT Labs
- Olivier Festor, Resarch Director EIT ICT Labs
- Future Internet PPP:
- Michael Fassnauer, CEO of UBImet
- Mikko Riepula, Project Coordinator of the FI-PPP Support Action and researcher at Aalto University
- Daniel Pays, Director of Advanced Studies at Thales
- Alfredo Acebal, Representative of Telefonica in Brussels (Telefonica is project coordinator of the core technology project FI-WARE)
About EIT ICT Labs
EIT ICT Labs is selected as one of the first three Knowledge and Innovation Communities (KIC) supported by the European Institute of Innovation & Technology (EIT). Our mission is to turn Europe into a global leader in Information and Communication Technologies – ICT innovations.
Sustainable energy supply, intelligent traffic management and increasing the quality of life are just some of the challenges that society, business and politics will face in the future. Innovative ICT technologies offer new ways of giving a much needed boost to finding alternative solutions. Education, Research and Business are three elements in the EIT ICT Labs “Knowledge Triangle” and key drivers of the knowledge-based society. EIT ICT Labs aims to create a new breed of innovators and entrepreneurs that can develop breakthrough ideas – supported all the way to the market.
EIT ICT Labs locations play a vital role as virtual and live meeting places for project members, students, entrepreneurs, SMEs and start-ups as well as major industrial partners searching for new talents and new innovative opportunities. Mobility is a key factor – we bring people together across geographical and organizational borders. EIT ICT Labs – Bringing ICT Innovations to Life.
About FI-PPP
With over a billion users world-wide, the Internet is one of history’s great success stories. Its global, integrated communications infrastructures and service platforms underpin the fabric of the European economy and society. Yet today’s Internet was designed in the 1970s, for purposes that bear little resemblance to current and future usage scenarios. Mismatches between the original design goals and how the Internet is being used are beginning to hamper its potential. Many challenges in the areas of technology, business, society and governance will have to be overcome if the future development of the Internet is to sustain the networked society of tomorrow.
To answer these challenges, the European Commission has launched the Future Internet Public-Private Partnership Programme (FI-PPP). The main goal is to advance a shared vision for harmonised European-scale technology platforms and their implementation, as well as the integration and harmonisation of the relevant policy, legal, political and regulatory frameworks. As set forth in the Digital Agenda for Europe, these are considered to be prerequisites for realizing a European online Digital Single Market (DSM) and, more broadly, an inclusive knowledge society.
This event will introduce the FI-PPP Programme and the various opportunities for SMEs, cities, regions and venture capitalists to benefit from it. In the presence of European Commission officials and FI-PPP representatives there will also be room for a discussion with these different stakeholders on how to facilitate their potential engagement.
This is the first in a series of events which will be held in various locations across Europe during the course of the next 12 months, with the objective of reaching as many stakeholders as possible all over Europe, raising awareness of the programme and attracting Regions, cities, SMEs, venture capitalists and society in general to engage in the programme.
CONCORD, in collaboration with all the FI-PPP projects through the Dissemination WG, will shortly publish on this website a calendar of next FI-PPP roadshow stops.
Check our calendar of events for agenda and details of the kick off meeting in Brussels.
]]>To make the internet fit for the 21st century, the €600-million Future Internet Public-Private Partnership tries to push technology development, as well as new business models. Tania Rabesandratana talks to Petra Turkama, one of the programme’s coordinators, and to participant José Jiménez.
The Future Internet Public-Private Partnership is a large experiment. Although it uses some well-tried methods—in particular pooling money from the European Commission and in-kind contributions from industry—to bring business and academia together, the FI-PPP is trying out a new, individual funding model.
“About 70 per cent of the funds go to the industry participants, 8 per cent to the public sector and the remaining 22 per cent to academia,” says Petra Turkama, director of Aalto University’s Center for Knowledge and Innovation Research in Finland, who is in charge of coordinating the programme. She notes that this distribution is roughly the reverse of a typical Framework research project.
The idea of FI-PPP first emerged around 2009, when a group of 16 companies—including telecoms providers BT and Orange as well as manufacturers Siemens, Nokia and Ericsson—set out to work together. “We wanted to follow a different model to that of Framework 6 or Framework 7, moving away from pure research to reach the phase of innovation and demonstration,” recalls José Jiménez, from Spanish telecoms firm Telefónica. “We want to reach the market and produce actual products.”
Initially, these companies were hoping to create a Joint Technology Initiative, another kind of public-private partnership that was launched around 2007. “In a JTI the businesses have more control,” Jiménez says, “while in the FI-PPP, the steering board includes people that do not have a direct link with the companies that make the investment.” But Turkama argues that this could be precisely one of the programme’s strengths, because it generates more cooperation among the programme’s different strands.
FI-PPP aims to develop products by working together with end-users. “The Commission is serious about impact on real business,” Turkama says, adding that “the users who will buy the technology must have a say”. For example, Earth observation technology can be used by companies or public authorities for logistics, agriculture and traffic management purposes—but each user has distinct needs, she explains.
“The challenge is to integrate the technology in existing structures,” Turkama says. This will be done through a series of life-size tests, to be carried out across Europe. To do this, the Commission urged FI-PPP to team up with the so-called ICT Labs research collaborations of the European Institute of Innovation and Technology. “They have the infrastructure to carry out trials for pilot projects, and they also have links with venture capital that we can take advantage of,” she says.
Jiménez agrees that the PPP model has other advantages; in particular, contrary to JTIs, the FI-PPP receives money directly from the Commission and not from member states. This makes it less vulnerable to political changes and budget cuts at the national level, he says.
The FI-PPP participants aim to come up with alternative business models to stay relevant in today’s open source age. For example, data management and storage require generic technologies that are independent from service providers—and any company should be able to build an application for them. “The market is going towards open source, so businesses have to find new ways of generating revenue,” Turkama says. “Even though we don’t have anything to sell yet, we are working on a business plan to see where firms can capture value.”
The programme’s founding companies have drafted a joint agreement spelling out the terms of their collaboration. “It’s royalty-free during the programme, and for after the programme there are ‘fair and reasonable’ terms defined,” Turkama says. “That means the companies don’t have to renegotiate an intellectual property arrangement every time.”
But Jiménez is more careful. “In the long term, if we come up with commercial products we will need specific agreements,” he says.
Turkama and her colleagues are not only in charge of managing the project; they also study how the FI-PPP itself works and will publish academic articles about the model. “I think it is a smart idea from the Commission, because we have no vested interest and we work as a neutral facilitator [between businesses and other participants],” she notes. “We have learnt from other projects that we have carried out in the past, from the failures of other programmes, and we will test some new concepts here.”
Petra Turkama
• 1994-99 MSc in industrial engineering and management, Lappeenranta University of Technology, Finland
• 2002-07 PhD in information technology management, Lappeenranta University of Technology, Finland
• 1998-2002 Business development manager at Nokia Networks, Finland
• 2002-09 Business consultant at Nokia Business Infrastructure, Germany
• 2010 Director of Aalto University’s Center for Knowledge and Innovation Research, Finland
José Jiménez
• 1981 Graduates from the school of telecommunications engineering at the Polytechnic University of Madrid, Spain
• 1983 Joins Telefónica’s research centre
• 1989 Division manager for telecommunications systems at Telefónica R+D, Spain
• 2000 Director of innovation at Telefónica R+D, Spain
• Since 2008 Responsible for collaborative research at Telefónica R+D, Spain
At the turning point of preparing for a new framework programme for research and innovation, i.e.Horizon 2020, the EU plans to invest more in innovation measures such as pilot lines, prototypes, and demonstrator activities etc.
It is important to support these additional measures with a charter laying down the commitment of industry. This would make the accountability of industry vis-à-vis the society in Europe clearer, reinforce ongoing partnerships and facilitate the launch of new ones.
This initiative reflects the High Level Group’s report on Key Enabling Technologies (KETs) and the provisions of Horizon 2020 on Public Private Partnerships.
Therefore, take this opportunity and make your comments to the statements below. Feel free to distinguish between actions you have done and others you foresee for the future.
In order to comment, simply select the words you would like to comment and click on the comment button.
]]>Phase 2 aims at:
- ensuring the availability of the necessary test infrastructure for the early trials,
- developing the core platform and the use case specific functionalities, and instantiate them on the test infrastructure,
- finalising selection, prepare and run early trials for all use cases, and
- preparing large scale trials in terms of SME participation as application and service developers and infrastructure integration across Europe.
While building on work done in phase 1, phase 2 is very different as it focuses on testing and trials.
The information day is open to anyone with a keen interest in the developments of the future Internet in the context of this initiative.
Venue:
Aalborg Europahallen / Aalborg Congress & Culture Center
Europa Plads 4
9000 Aalborg
Denmark
Agenda
13:30-14:00 Future Internet PPP: Where we stand; where we go (European Commission)
14:00-14:30 Presentation of the Objective 1.8 and Objective 1.9 of the FP7 ICT work programme 2011/12 (European Commission)
14:30-15:00 Q&A – replies to questions from the room and the web
15:00-15:30 Coffee break / break-out discussion
15:30-17:30 Presentations and current status of FI-PPP projects:
CONCORD
INFINITY
FI-WARE
All FI-PPP Use cases
17:30-18:30 Visit the FI-PPP project booths (one-to-one talk @ stands in the back of the room )
Should you wish to present a project idea for call 2 please get in touch with us prior, during, or after to the event (email)!
Essential reading:
- FP7 ICT work programme 2011/12 specific to the FI-PPP
- Ongoing work on the FI-PPP (www.fi-ppp.eu)
Registration: To participate at this event, please register via the FIA Aalborg site (http://www.fi-aalborg.eu/)
Contact: [email protected]
Follow the FI-PPP on twitter! (@FI_PPP)
]]>FI-WARE will deliver a novel service infrastructure, building upon elements (called Generic Enablers – GEs) which offer reusable and commonly shared functions making it easier to develop Future Internet Applications in multiple sectors. This infrastructure will bring significant and quantifiable improvements in the performance, reliability and production costs linked to Internet Applications – building a true foundation for the Future Internet.
FI-WARE is the cornerstone of the Future Internet PPP (FI-PPP) program, a joint action by European Industry and the European Commission.
]]>An open dissemination workshop: Future Internet PPP – Opportunities for smart cities and SMEs was organised in the breathtaking OMAU (Urban Environmental Monitoring) facilities on the March 21th. The projects presenting themselves were: FI-WARE, OUTSMART, SAFECITY and CONCORD.
The projects, e.g. FI-WARE and CONCORD held also bilateral meetings. New ways of collaboration were explored together in a warm and forward loooking spirit.
We would like to thank Malaga City Council and OMAU for the hospitality shown and for the projects attending and contributing to the events. FI-WARE posting of the events on their part can be found here.
]]>The Program, along with its constituent projects, is currently involved in developing an agenda of emergent issues that will need to be addressed through policy, regulation and indeed broader governance design to support the achievement of the Program objectives.
The present discussion seeks to briefly highlight the key aspects of the analytical framework, currently in development in the CONCORD project in collaboration with the FI PPP projects, to be applied for the identification, mapping and prioritization of these issues.
Broadly speaking, the framework is being constructed around the organizing concept of ‘institutional agenda design’ that has both EU and global dimensions. Current discussions on the institutional topology of FI PPP focus not so much on ‘policy’, or ‘regulation’ as they do on governance. The term ‘governance’ does not refer exclusively to acts or duties of government. The concept is broader, and extends beyond the state apparatus. Governance, apart from institutions, policy, and law includes multiple institutionalized mechanisms, decision-making structures and procedures, norms and technologies, that apportion rights and responsibilities and involves different communities of stakeholders in the definition and implementation of social and political objectives.
Policy and regulation in this context are not blueprinted ‘intervention’ or ‘guidance’ but rather a function of a non-deterministic assessment of the development trajectory of a given FI PPP initiative with the objective to optimize the conditions of its success. In other words, FI PPP-related policies and regulations should be crafted with the input of civil society, business, government, and technical experts in collaboration with broader stakeholder bases.
In terms of its methodology, the framework adopts a ‘dialectical perspective’ that expresses the dialogue between policy and technology. In this perspective, we examine FI PPP policy, regulation and governance from two analytically distinct, but in reality interrelated perspectives: 1) FI PPP policy, regulation and governance as seen from a ‘technology perspective’, 2) Technology as seen from a ‘policy, regulation and governance perspective’.
The merit of this approach is that it opens certain dialogue terrains that cannot be accessed through a single – either ‘technology’ or ‘policy, regulation and governance’ – perspective. The issue is one of interdisciplinarity – but more importantly one of inter-epistemological challenges in constructing effective bridges of communication across diverse stakeholding and decision-making communities involved in the FI PPP – be they in the public or private sectors. In other words, though establishing cross-disciplinary paths of communication across the FI PPP is important, an emerging fundamental issue concerns addressing the challenges of how knowledge is built within different disciplines and stakeholding communities and of establishing knowledge complementarities across them.
One way to construct such bridges is to apply a ‘multilevel governance framework’ that would allow us to explore linkages between EU, national, regional and local/urban policies and ways the strengthening of linkages across them might more effectively address FI PPP challenges. Such a framework calls for the narrowing or closing of the policy ‘gaps’ between levels and sectors of governance through the adoption of mechanisms and tools for vertical and horizontal cooperation.
The vertical dimension recognizes that EU institutions and national governments cannot effectively implement FI PPP strategies without working closely with regional and urban/local governments. It also recognizes that urban/local policy or regulatory authority required to act in areas related to FI PPP is often constrained by institutional frameworks at higher levels. Thus, a two-way – ‘top-down’ / ‘bottom-up’ relationship that involves agencies of the state, government, civil society and individuals – exists between EU, national, regional and urban/local action levels on FI PPP initiatives as each can enable or constrain the other.
The horizontal recognizes the opportunity for information xchange, learning and cooperation across EU, national, regions, and urban/local governance structures. Horizontal governance activities, at sub-national, national and transnational levels, can give government, business, research and non-governmental organizations influence in the FI PPP institutional agenda design process. The horizontal dimension is also associated with improving coordination across EU, national and regional authorities to implement cross-sectoral FI PPP initiatives.
It is by applying consistently this analytical framework that policy, regulation and governance can enable PPP make its full impact on the valorization of FI and, in tendem, achieve the objectives of the FI PPP Program in realizing a European Digital Single Market and an inclusive network society of tomorrow.
Dr. Takis Damaskopoulos, European Institute of Interdisciplinary Research (EIIR) – CONCORD
]]>- Promote their work and expertise on a European stage
- Gain peer recognition from the Award’s eminent Judging Panel
- Increase the networking capacity of organisations involved
The entry form itself can be downloaded from the above link and takes less than 5-10 mins to complete.
The closing date for receipt of entries is 6th April, and the winner will be presented with his/her prize at the FIA Aalborg event in May, during the closing ceremony.
The following are articles/pictures of previous winners:
http://www.cefims.eu/2011/10/trilogy-wins-third-running-of-future-internet-award/
http://www.cefims.eu/2011/05/smartsantander-wins-future-internet-award/
http://www.cefims.eu/2011/01/winners-of-future-internet-award-announced/
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