4th NEM General Assembly

held on 6th March 2007 in BrusselsThe 4^th NEM General Assembly took place in Brussels on 6^th March 2007 where over hundred participants had opportunity to discuss about recent and future activities of the NEM Initiative. The highlights of the 4^th General Assembly were elections of new NEM Steering Board members, Workshop on expressions of interests of NEM members for creation of collaborative R&D projects and search for partners among NEM members to join the consortiums, and presentations about newly created NEM R&D Clusters.

Elections for NEM Steering Board

The following companies are elected by the General Assembly as new Steering Board members:

Category: Industry/content

Category: Academic/research

Category: Operator/broadcaster

Workshop on Project ideas of NEM members – Search for Partners

In February 2007, NEM Office issued a Call for project proposals, created by NEM members, to be presented at the 4th NEM General Assembly. This time, the emphasis of the Call was on projects looking for partners among NEM members to join the consortiums. 15 project ideas have been received and 13 of them have been presented at the General Assembly.

• All received presentations are available for download here

Other topics (selection)

Call 1 of the EC 7th Frame Programme, Luis Rodriguez-Rosello, Head of Unit: Networked Audiovisual Systems Directorate General Information Society and Media – European Commission

• During his presentation, Mr. Luis Rodriguez-Rosello focused on research challenges for NEM community in Call 1 of ICT of the EC 7th Framework Programme. He presented main objectives of the Challenge “Pervasive & Trusted Network & Service Infrastructures”, opportunities to address cross-objectives in the project proposals, and facts about Media Technologies EC Commitment and R&D trends. Mr. Rodriguez-Rosello also presented founding schemes and available budget as well as impact expected to achieved in R&D projects founded by the EC. Evaluation criteria for the reviewing process and time table for Call 1 have also been presented. Finally, Mr. Rodriguez-Rosello concluded that NEM Initiative has made substantial contribution to FP7 Work Program and that key role of NEM was an increase of actors active in collaboration in NEM related areas. He also stressed a need for both evolutionary and disruptive approaches in R&D projects.

• During open discussion, it is concluded that number of IP and STREP types of collaborative projects to be accepted after Call 1 will mainly depend, beside defined thresholds, on quality of the received proposals. Furthermore, it was mentioned that R&D areas addressed in the NEM Strategic Research Agenda can be found in various Challenges and objectives, defined in FP7 Call 1.

• Presentation slides available here

Challenge 4 – Call 1 of the EC 7th Frame Programme, Roberto Cencioni, Head of Unit: Content and Knowledge, Directorate General Information Society and Media, European Commission

• Mr. Roberto Cencioni informed NEM members about work carried out in creation of the EC’s Framework Programme 7, particularly in defining objectives of the Challenge 4. In more details, he presented objectives in areas of “Digital libraries” and “Intelligent content”. Furthermore, Mr. Cencioni discussed ways to address objectives defined in the Call 1 in project proposals.

• Mr. Cencioni stressed orientation of the Commission not to accept project proposals containing basic research without prospective that the project results, to be achieved, will be implemented within next 10 years. On the other hand, he mentioned that the Commission will also not be ready to support project created only for product development (without clear research goals). Finally, Mr. Cencioni presented available instruments for realisation of the collaborative projects in FP7 as well as division of budget related to the Challenge 4.

• Presentations slides available here

Creation of NEM Clusters, Pierre-Yves Danet, France Telecom

• Mr. Pierre-Yves Danet presented activities of the NEM Steering Board and NEM Executive Group on creation of NEM R&D Clusters. All NEM members are invited to participate in various cluster activities as well as to create new clusters. All relevant information about purpose of the NEM Clusters and how to join or create clusters can be found on the NEM website.

• The following NEM Clusters have been presented at the 4th General Assembly: NMCD – Next Multimedia Content Distribution – Pierre-Yves Danet, France Telecom; NEM SEC – NEM Security Cluster – James Clarke, Waterford Institute of Technology; NEM MAN – Management framework for the optimisation of Networked Electronic Media in Next Generation Internet – James Clarke, Waterford Institute of Technology; Future Internet – David Kennedy, Eurescom; Global NEM – Julian Sesena, Rose Vision; MCS Multimedia Content Search – Nozha Boujemaa, INRIA.

NEM Project Characteristics, Jean-Michel Dupont, Thomson

• Mr. Jean-Michel Dupont presented the purpose and content of the “NEM Project Characteristics document” which describes requirements on “NEM projects”. The document is available on the NEM website (www.nem-initiative.org). In order to become a NEM project, the project consortiums have to address elements of the NEM agenda and we would appreciate it if they contact the NEM Office so we can include then in lists of NEM relevant proposals. info([at])nem.initiative.org