Networks of Excellence Information Service

In April 1991, the European Commission's Information Technology Research Programme (ESPRIT), established three pilot Networks of Excellence within the 4th Framework Programme. These were Europe-wide communities working in key areas of IT research. Each Network consisted of several nodes. The nodes were research centres, academic departments or industrial laboratories. Access to one Network node gave access to the resources and expertise of all nodes. ESPRIT funding enabled members of a Network to establish the administrative and information infrastructure of a research community. The success of the three pilot Networks, in speech and natural language, and distributed computing and computational logic, led to the establishment of a number of NoEs in other areas. There are 18 Networks of Excellence.

The IST Programme followed on from ESPRIT, ACTS and Telematics Applications Programmes. It has four inter-related specific objectives.

1. For the private individual, the objective is to meet the need and expectation of high-quality affordable general interest services.
2. For Europe’s enterprises, workers and consumers, the objective is to enable individuals and organisations to innovate and be more effective and efficient in their work, thereby providing the basis for sustainable growth and high added-value employment while also improving the quality of working life.
3. In the sector of multimedia content, the key objective is to confirm Europe as a leading force, realising its full potential.
4. For the enabling technologies which are the foundations of the information society, the programme objective is to drive their development, enhance their applicability and accelerate their take-up in Europe.

Network of Excellence Infrastructure

The information on this server is replicated across a network of servers in Europe. URLs generally take the form http://www.[location].research.ec.org/, and the full list of servers is below:

• http://www.laas.research.ec.org/
• http://www.kaiserslautern.research.ec.org/
• http://www.forth.research.ec.org/
• http://www.tcd.research.ec.org/
• http://www.cnuce.research.ec.org/
• http://www.twente.research.ec.org/
• http://www.fcul.research.ec.org/
• http://www.newcastle.research.ec.org/

France	Germany	Greece	Ireland	Italy	Netherlands	Portugal	United Kingdom

Websites

Many of the (current and closed) research projects funded by the European Community have websites hosted at http://www.research.ec.org. Here is a list:

• http://www.research.ec.org/cabernet (CaberNet Network of Excellence)
• http://www.research.ec.org/dsos (Dependable Systems of Systems)
• http://www.research.ec.org/maftia (Malicious and Accidental Fault Tolerance)
• http://www.research.ec.org/enorics (Framework 6 proposed Network of Excellence in Security)
• http://www.research.ec.org/midas (Middleware for Composable and Dynamically Adaptable Services)
  
• http://www.research.ec.org/tapas (Trusted and QoS-Aware Provision of Application Services)
• http://www.research.ec.org/desire (DeSIRE - DEpendable Systems and Information infrastructures - Research and Exploitation )
• http://www.research.ec.org/c3ds (Control and Coordination of Complex Distributed Services)
• http://www.research.ec.org/deva (Design for Validation)
  
• http://www.research.ec.org/pdcs (Predictably Dependable Computing Systems)
• http://www.research.ec.org/squale (Security, Safety and Quality Evaluation for Dependable Systems.)

Archives

There are archives of past ESPRIT Projects. You can also find information on other research funding programmes and agencies and find some other useful links.