Fourth Call for Proposals

EU Information Society Technologies Programme

July 2000

Key Actions 1  -  4

Take-up/Support Measures

Action Lines

This is NOT an official document.  Its contents have been extracted from the IST 2000 Workprogramme which can be downloaded from www.cordis.lu/ist

INDEX OF ACTION LINES

IST 2000 - I.5.3		Best Practice & Demonstration actions in electronic fee collection
IST 2000 - II.1.1	New Perspectives for Work and Business
IST 2000 - II.1.4	Early Exploitation & Adoption of eCommerce and eWork Solutions
			and Practices

IST 2000 - II.1.5	Promoting Broad Adoption of eCommerce & eWork in Regional
			and Sectoral Settings

IST 2000 - II.1.6	Specific Support Measures
IST 2000 - II.4.2	Large-Scale Trust and Confidence
IST 2000 - III.1.3	Trials and test-beds for digital content authoring and 
			personalising systems

IST 2000 - III.1.5	Trials on new access modes to cultural and scientific content
IST 2000 - III.2.3	Trials and best practice addressing advanced solutions for
			on-the-job training in SMEs

IST 2000 - III.4.3	Trials and best practice in information access, filtering, analysis 				and handling

IST 2000 - III.5.1	Working groups and dissemination and awareness actions
IST 2000 - IV.1.1	Implications Assessment
IST 2000 - IV.2.5	Computing, communications and networks – take-up measures
IST 2000 - IV.3.4	Software, systems and services – take-up measures
IST 2000 - IV.4.3	Real-time simulation and visualisation, mixed reality – take-up 
			measures

IST 2000  - IV.6.3	Advanced displays and sensors – take-up measures
IST 2000 -  IV.7.5	Subsystems – take-up measures
IST 2000 -  IV.7.6	Microsystems – take-up measures
IST 2000 -  IV.8.6	Microelectronics design and test – take-up measures
IST 2000 – IV.8.7	Application-specific microelectronics and optoelectronics
			take-up measures

IST 2000 – IV.8.8	Industrial microelectronics technologies: processes, equipment
			and materials – take-up

Key Action I - SYSTEMS AND SERVICES FOR THE CITIZEN

iST 2000 - I.5.3 	Best practice and demonstration actions in electronic fee collection

Objectives:	To promote the uptake of standardised solutions for multifunctional electronic fee collection and payment systems in the domain of transport in the regions of Member and Associated States.

Focus:

To develop, demonstrate and promote awareness of multifunctional electronic fee collection and payment systems’ equipment and installations (based on Dedicated Short Range Communications – DSRC – standards and/or mobile communications and satellite location technologies). Work should support demand management and should include collection of road user charges, fare payment, parking payment and access control. It should enable the integration of electronic payment across different transport applications.  This activity will, whenever applicable, interact with the relevant policy-related research and demonstration activities outlined in the Growth Programme in the Key Action on Sustainable Mobility and Intermodality.

Three domains will be covered:

•	Best practice awareness actions aimed at promoting exchange of best practice, co-ordination and interoperable solutions for the use of multifunctional electronic fee collection and payment systems across Europe.

•	Demonstrations providing a test-bed for secure, on-line access technologies that ensure privacy.  These demonstrations should support local, regional and national authorities in the stimulation of the take-up of multifunctional electronic fee collection and payment systems, including the associated dissemination.

•	Integration and demonstration of multifunctional electronic fee collection and payment system equipment and installations across different transport and other applications, including contact-less operation in public transport vehicles and fixed infrastructure.

Types of actions addressed: Best practice and demonstration actions.	
Links with WP99: New Action Line.

Key Action II - NEW METHODS OF WORK AND ELECTRONIC COMMERCE

IST 2000 - II.1.1	New perspectives for work and business
Objectives: To develop a better understanding of the social, economic, industrial and environmental implications of novel technologies for work and business and, in the process, provide guidance to other activities in this Key Action as well as to related legal and policy activities. This work is expected to be carried out through a combination of accompanying measures, RTD and demonstrations. 

Focus:

•	Improve understanding of the organisational, industrial, economic, legal, policy and social challenges faced by European enterprises as they strive to leverage novel IST solutions & practices for work & business and compete in the global digital economy. 
•	Development of new econometric models to assess and predict the impact of new eCommerce solutions and practices on industrial competitiveness 

•	Improve understanding of the linkages between IST-enabled work and sustainable development in a global Information Society. Particular attention should be given to social relationships in the workplace, quality of worklife (including health and safety), changes in transport, energy and material consumption, as well as new opportunities for more efficient use of the built environment and better city planning.

•	Definition of performance indicators for companies with large intangible asset bases and development of management instruments to evaluate possible investments in the intangible assets of an enterprise.

Types of actions addressed: Accompanying measures, RTD	
Links with WP99: Updated version of ALII.1.1. 

IST 2000 - II.1.4	Early exploitation and adoption of eCommerce and eWork solutions and practices

Objectives: The objective is to promote early exploitation and adoption of novel solutions and practices for eCommerce, eWork and “Smart” Organisations. This is done by supporting activities aimed at customising, integrating, validating and benchmarking novel technologies, architectures, business processes and organisational practices for eCommerce , eWork and “Smart” Organisations. Emphasis is on solutions and practices that are directly supportive of the objectives of one or more of the following Action Lines: II.1.2, II.1.3, II.2.1, II.2.2, II.3.1 and II.4.1.

Focus:

•	Trials are intended to help customise and validate promising, yet untested technologies, applications and organisational practices in realistic and/or operational contexts and, in so doing, help prepare these solutions for rapid transfer to the marketplace. Trials are intended as replicable one-off exercises.

•	Test-beds are intended to serve as shared reusable validation, integration and/or benchmarking vehicles for multiple comparable and/or complementary solutions. Emphasis is generally on interoperability, scalability, dependability and usability. Test-beds can also be used to organise competitions. 

Types of Actions addressed: Trials and Demonstrations.	
Links with WP99: This AL replaces the formal take-up measures on trials in KAII and introduces test-beds in KAII.

IST 2000 - II.1.5	Promoting broad adoption of eCommerce & eWork in regional and sectoral settings
Objectives: Promote early and broad adoption of novel solutions and practices for eCommerce, eWork and “Smart” organisations with a special emphasis on regional and sectoral customisation. This includes activities aimed at showcasing the benefits of new solutions and facilitating their deployment in SMEs.

Focus: 

Focus is on cost-effective, high impact activities that can serve as catalysts for much broader dissemination and early adoption of novel solutions and practices. Priorities in 2000 are:

•	Clusters aimed at co-ordinating “Trials” and “Best Practice” activities with common needs already launched under the 5th Framework Programme, creating synergy among them and enhancing their overall visibility and impact through coordinated awareness and dissemination activities. 

•	Advanced business experiments aimed at connecting regional or sectoral communities to the global digital economy. This includes the creation of local and sectoral digital communities as well as their interconnection.

•	Early adoption activities aimed at promoting integration of candidate Enlargement countries into the global digital economy.  

Types of Actions addressed: Best practice, Demonstrations, Thematic networks, non take-up accompanying measures	
Links with WP99: Subsumes/replaces former best practice measures.

IST 2000 - II.1.6	Specific support measures
Objectives:  To add value to activities launched within this Key Action, help maximise their impact and create synergistic links both within the Key Action and with related activities at the regional, national, Community or international level. 

Focus: 

•	Measures aimed at creating synergy among RTD projects and/or take-up actions within this Key Action as well as with other related activities whether at the regional, national, Community, or international level.

•	Strengthening Europe’s skill base for the digital economy: measures aimed at identifying and disseminating new skill requirements associated with the emerging digital economy as they relate to work in this Key Action.

•	Measures aimed at maximising the impact and visibility of work within this Key Action through broad, yet cost-effective dissemination activities. 

•	Measures aimed at building industrial consensus, promoting interoperability and standardisation in the areas of eWork, eCommerce, Enterprise Systems and Trust & Confidence, including relevant middleware. Emphasis is on cost-effective efforts aimed at bringing together key players and building early critical mass in strategic areas, in co-operation with relevant international initiatives and bodies. 

•	Measures aimed at promoting international co-operation in the areas of eWork, eCommerce, “Smart” Organisations, and Trust & Confidence with a particular emphasis on addressing co-operation with newly associated countries.

Types of Actions addressed: Thematic networks, Accompanying measures (excluding take-up) Links with WP99:	New action line

IST 2000 - II.4.2	Large-scale trust and confidence
Objectives: To scale-up, integrate, validate and demonstrate trust and confidence technologies and architectures in the context of advanced large-scale scenarios for business and everyday life. This work will largely be carried out through trials, integrated test-beds and combined RTD and demonstrations

Focus: 

•	Generic solutions that emphasise large-scale interoperability and are capable of supporting a broad array of transactions (e.g. e-purses and e-money), applications and processes.  

•	Development of solutions that reconcile new eCommerce models and processes with security requirements, paying particular attention to the needs of SMEs and consumers 

•	Validation should generally include assessing legal implications of proposed solutions, especially in the context of solutions aimed at empowering users to consciously and effectively manage their personal  “rights and assets”.

•	Types of Actions addressed: RTD, Trials and Best practice	
Links with WP99: Combines elements of WP99 ALs II.4.1, II.4.2 and II.4.3 reflecting the importance of Trust and Confidence issues.

Key Action III - MULTIMEDIA CONTENT AND TOOLS

IST 2000 - III.1.3	Trials and test-beds for digital content authoring and personalising systems 
Objectives: To promote the use of new multimedia authoring and design systems as well as personalised applications of high-quality multimedia content and services in key areas (knowledge, business and lifestyle publishing, advertising and geographic information).

Focus: 

•	Trials of new multimedia authoring and design systems by content creators. 

•	Trials to validate the technologies for personalised creation, publishing, access and delivery of distributed multimedia content.

•	Test-beds to validate the functionality, usability and acceptability of Internet authoring and production tools, and personalised delivery of rich multimedia content to users, including the socially excluded.

Type of Actions addressed: Trials (Take-up Support Nodes are expected to be called separately).	
Links with WP99: New Action Line.  

IST 2000 - III.1.5	Trials on new access modes to cultural and scientific 
                                content

Objectives: To foster the adoption and introduction of leading edge technologies for the access to cultural and scientific content. 

Focus: 

Trials using state-of-the art technologies for memory organisations (archives, libraries, museums, etc) that add value to collections and associated services. Domains of interest include new navigation tools, wireless access to the Web, improved visualisation of artefacts and collections, community building for thematic collections, etc. In all cases the trials should be driven by an authentic need as expressed by a well-defined user profile. 
These activities will be pursued in collaboration with other programs and initiatives at national and regional level.

Type of Actions addressed: Trials	
Links with WP99: New Action Line.

IST 2000 - III.2.3.	Trials and best practice addressing advanced solutions for on-the-job training in SMEs 
Objectives: To foster the adoption of technology-based solutions and services enabling the whole life cycle of on-the-job training services in SMEs, including development of sustainable business models.

Types of Actions addressed: Trials and best practice	
Links with WP99: New Action Line. 

IST 2000 - III.4.3	Trials and best practice in information access, filtering, analysis and handling 
Objectives: To promote the study, realisation, adoption and introduction of state-of-the-art information access tools at end users sites. Proposals must include significant trials and best practices.

Focus: 

•	Innovative use and integration of soft computing, statistical, simulation and optimisation methodologies and related solutions and technologies.

•	Trials and best practice to encourage further development and use of emerging media and metadata standards in this area,where at present there are relatively few standards, particularly of European origin.

Types of Actions addressed: Trials and best practice	
Links with WP99: New Action Line.

IST 2000 - III.5.1	Working groups, and dissemination and awareness 
                                 actions

Working groups for the stimulation and consolidation of standards and best practice work both at European and global level, in both formal and informal forums and involving national bodies, in the following areas:

–	Audiovisual content production and electronic publishing application areas (e.g. knowledge and lifestyle publishing, geographic information).
–	Virtual representation and preservation of cultural and scientific objects, including relevant policy issues (e.g. copyright, service models).
–	Learning technologies, e.g. open learning architectures, metadata, standard interfaces, models and best practice relating to reusable learning objects, potentially contributing to IEEE P1484 and CEN/ISSS workshop on learning standards.
–	Industry-led work in the human language technologies area addressing end-to-end and system-level interworking of heterogeneous components; open reference architectures and development environments, including service/application configuration platforms; interoperability and reuse of linguistic data, including automated techniques for extracting application and task specific information from experimental data.
–	Media representation and cross-media content interchange, especially for streamed digital audio and visual content, e.g. digital video objects and sequences.
–	Information retrieval, metadata, intelligent agents.

Dissemination and awareness actions to cover:

•	Measures aimed at a wider exposure of and user access to leading-edge technologies and innovative solutions, through virtual exhibitions and showcases, covering emerging results from previous and ongoing RTD efforts.
•	Establishment of focal points in support of national and international communities of human-language technologies researchers, developers and users, with a view to fostering new partnerships and speeding up the deployment of research results.

Types of Actions addressed: Thematic Networks, Accompanying Measures (excluding take-up).	
Links with WP99: New Action Line, in complement to the Continuous Submission Scheme. 

Key Action IV: ESSENTIAL TECHNOLOGIES AND INFRASTRUCTURES

IST 2000 - IV.1.1	Implications Assessment

Objectives: To guide, monitor and assess the developments and implications of new technologies and infrastructures, their convergence, integration, and evolution. Activities can address areas within a group of Action Lines as well as areas that span across the Key Action.

Focus:

To measure and assess their potential socio-economic implications.
To analyse the likely impact of the evolution of new service requirements on network, system and terminal architectures and features.

To identify areas where policy, legislation and regulation may need to evolve to fit new technology and infrastructure developments, such as for privacy, security, safety, and licensing issues.

To provide new knowledge about the policy areas, the regulatory framework and the socio-economic context in which new technologies and infrastructures are developing, so as to better understand what drives RTD and how RTD can better serve other policy areas.

The research will normally be in the form of case studies alongside and within ongoing RTD projects and take-up measures, complemented by targeted dissemination activities.

Types of actions addressed: Accompanying measures (excluding take-up). 
Links with WP’99: Refocused IV.1.1.

IST 2000 - IV.2.5	Computing, communications and networks – take-up measures
Objectives:

(i) To identify, experiment and validate mechanisms for the development of "computing, communication and networking applications” in virtual organisations characterised by dynamic allocation of resources.

(ii) To conduct trials aiming at the adaptation and introduction in new services and/or industrial applications of mobile and intelligent agent technologies and middleware for the management of process flow in distributed applications with shared resources.

(iii) To conduct trials aiming at the introduction and intelligent integration of embedded vision and/or control systems in production environments.

Focus:

(i) Extraction of best practices for different business models and disseminate widely.

(ii) Open source software.

(iii) Low cost systems based on off-the-shelf components integrated using advanced networking technologies.

Types of actions addressed: Trials and best practice actions. 
Links with WP’99: Combination of take-up measures in IV.2

IST 2000 - IV.3.4	Software, systems and services – take-up measures

Objectives:

(i) Best practice actions to encourage the adoption of open source software.

(ii) Best practice actions to encourage the take up of available techniques for early requirements gathering and their validation.

(iii) Trials of processes, methods and tools for development and testing of software systems by teams distributed across different organisations.

Focus:

(i) Adoption of open source software in and for the development of embedded systems.

(ii) The Improvement of requirements engineering of embedded systems and services.

(iii) Software systems embedded in inter-operating devices and appliances.

Types of actions addressed: Trials and best practice actions. 
Links with WP’99: Combination of take-up measures in IV.3.

IST 2000 - IV.4.3	Real-time simulation and visualisation, mixed reality            – take-up measures
Objectives: Trials and best practice actions that use tools for both consumer and professional uses.

Focus:

Uses in SMEs and/or in industrial/service sectors that traditionally do not use such tools.

Types of actions addressed: Trials and best practice actions. 
Links with WP’99: Combination of take-up measures in IV.4.

IST 2000 - IV.6.3	Advanced displays and sensors – take-up measures
Objectives: The aim is to stimulate the take-up of advanced displays and sensors in user friendly interfaces. 

Focus:

Best practice actions: To improve the design and ergonomics of existing systems by using flat and slim displays for the first time. Innovative use of display technologies through the offering of an ASIC display service to the user.
Trials: To integrate existing displays / sensors / actuators as part of demonstration projects, in test-beds, promoting its benefit for user friendly interfaces.
Assessment actions: In display manufacturing: The assessment of advanced material and prototype equipment for the manufacture and interconnect of displays, and drivers assembly.

Types of actions addressed: Trials, best practice actions, and assessment actions. 
Links with WP’99: Combination of take-up measures in IV.6..
IST 2000 - IV.7.5       Subsystems – take-up measures

Objectives: 

Trials: The aim is to stimulate the take-up of advanced subsystems and subsystem technologies in new products. 

Best practice actions: To accelerate the first use of advanced subsystems and high density packaging technology to enhance the functionality and/or economy of existing products and systems.

Assessment actions: The target is to stimulate the rapid take-up of advanced material and prototype equipment by industry.

Focus:

Trials: Adaptation and introduction in new products of advanced subsystems and subsystem technologies; and the introduction of new system design technologies and methodologies into the design flow of subsystems and subsystem based products.
Best practice actions: Application in industrial sectors where penetration of the particular subsystem technology is currently limited.
Assessment actions: The assessment of advanced material and prototype equipment for the manufacture of electronic subsystems, encapsulation and attachment of semiconductor devices.

Types of actions addressed: Trials, Best practice  and Assessment actions. 
Links with WP’99: Refocused take-up measures of IV.7.2.

IST 2000 - IV.7.6       Microsystems – take-up measures

Objectives: 

Trials: The aim is to stimulate the take-up of advanced microsystems components and microsystem technologies in new products. 

Best practice actions: To accelerate the first use of existing microsystems and microsystem technology to enhance the functionality and/or economy of existing products and systems.

Assessment actions: The target is to stimulate the rapid take-up of advanced material and prototype equipment by industry.

 Focus:

Trials: Adaptation and introduction in new products of advanced microsystems components and microsystem technologies; and the introduction of new microsystem design technologies and methodologies into the design flow of microsystem components and microsystem based products.

Best practice actions: Application in industrial sectors where penetration of the particular microsystem technology is currently limited.

Assessment actions: The assessment of advanced material and prototype equipment for the fabrication, integration, packaging and test of multi-function microsystems.

Types of actions addressed: Trials, best practice and Assessment actions. 
Links with WP’99: Refocused take-up measures of IV.7.3, in complementarity to work in the Competitive and Sustainable Growth Programme, in particular its Key Action 1 and its generic activity on Materials.

IST 2000 - IV.8.6	Microelectronics design and test – take-up measures
Objectives:
 
Trials: To implement, adapt and assess new types of tools and methods in close to production conditions.
 
Focus:

For methods, the focus is on collaborative design and on reuse of Intellectual Property (IP blocks for well identified classes of applications. For tools, all areas of microelectronics design and test can be addressed.

Type of actions addressed: Trials. 
Links with WP’99: Refocused take-up measures of IV.8.1.

IST 2000 - IV.8.7	Application-specmicroelectronic  and
           optoelectronics – take-up measures
Objectives: Best practice actions: To accelerate the first use of existing microelectronics technologies (ASICs, FPGAs, reconfigurable devices and micro-controllers) and/or optoelectronics to enhance the capabilities and/or economy of existing products and/or services. 

Focus:

The integration of new communication capabilities and/or improvement of user interfaces in existing products and services.

Type of actions addressed: Best practice actions. 
Links with WP’99: Refocused take-up measures of IV.8.2.

IST 2000 - IV.8.8	Industrial microelectronics technologies: processes, equipment and materials – take-up measures

Objectives:

Semiconductor Equipment Assessment (SEA): The target is to stimulate the rapid take-up of advanced prototype equipment and related OEM components and materials by the semiconductor industry. 

Focus:

User driven assessment of advanced prototype equipment and related OEM components and materials for semiconductor manufacture. Facility level equipment is not included. The objective is: 

(i) To assess beta type equipment under close to production conditions to create reference centres at user sites. 

(ii) To have an early proof of innovative process concepts by adapting state-of-the-art equipment. 

(iii) To have an early proof of concept for alpha type 300 mm equipment.

Type of actions addressed:  Assessment actions
Links with WP’99: Refocused take-up measures of IV.8.3