National research programmes are crucial to the development of Europe’s information and communication technology (ICT) sector. However enhancing the coordination across the disparate initiatives in different countries is needed if Europe is to realise its full research potential. CISTRANA is helping to solve the problem.
While Europe has a remarkably high reputation in ICT research, fragmentation of efforts, limited cooperation between key players, and lack of information exchange about activities in other countries can sometimes lead to loss of efficiency, duplication of effort and missed opportunities. CISTRANA aims to overcome these barriers and improve the impact of research and development effort in Europe. The upshot, say the CISTRANA partners, will be increased European competitiveness on a global scale.
Faced with globalisation and increased competition from emerging markets, few EU organisations or countries can now afford the cost of building the know-how and skills to master increasingly complex technologies. EU research programmes therefore foster the pan-European industry/academic partnerships needed to integrate ICT goods and services, and to develop the EU and international standards needed for global markets.
With CISTRANA, “The idea is to support coordination in ICT R&D by developing a map of the national research landscape in the area of ICTs, and establishing a portal with comparable information on national ICT R&D policies and programmes across Europe,” says Edina Németh, the CISTRANA project’s spokesperson at NKTH in Hungary.
In addition the project will, she says, identify ICT research topics and strategic themes where trans-national cooperation is essential, aiming to establish sustainable mechanisms for building coordination initiatives between different Member States. Specifically, such cooperation would, she says, enable the best brains in Europe to systematically come together and pool efforts in strategic fields, resulting in research that is more efficient, costs less and is better overall. European ICT research would improve and European competitiveness in many fields would increase at a faster pace than if countries continue to work individually. Better cooperation will also help to ensure that the continent maintains the leadership it has built up in a number of ICT sectors.
The activities within CISTRANA cover all EU member states and associated states. The consortium consists of five project partners and is supported by a steering committee of national delegates from member and associated states nominated by national ministries, who give strategic advice and political guidance to the project.
Source: IST Results
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