I’ve been in Brussels for the Commission infodays on 21 – 22 April 2005, which addressed activity in the field of software (and more specifically, at times, the topic of libre software). There seem to be plenty of oportunities for actors in the libre software field to get funding in the fore-coming call 5.
Here is my report about the worskops on “Key Challenges for Software and Services Research” and the preparation of Call 5. Update: I have a written a more focused post for description of Call 5 oportunities.
First an excerpt from the IST website announcing the event : “The next call for proposals in Software and Services, IST Call 5, will close on 21 September 2005. As part of its preparations for the call, the Software Technologies Unit is organising two events to encourage discussion of the technological challenges, to stimulate constituency involvement and to facilitate networking of potential proposers.”
The very interesting thing : there seem to be plenty of oportunities for actors in the libre software field to get funding for RtD activities in the FP6. The Strategic Objective ‘Software and Services’ which is included within the coming Call 5 is the place to participate. The whole “software and services” call will be publised on 17 May 2005, and will be closed on 21 September 2005, and the whole budget is 67 M€.
There is a dedicated “Open Source” item for which proposal could be submitted, which is a novelty compared to previous calls. And the Commission seems to expect development/technologically oriented proposals, not just socio-economics and the like as it was before, on STREPs or IPs. So there are interesting oportunities.
The attendance at the infodays was quite numerous, and interesting (met collegues from Calibre and other usual suspect in European events about libre software ;).
The issue of open-source seems to be the hot topic everybody is interested in in Europe… although there was the usual bunch of criticisms and risk-related talk from big companies representatives… Anyway, it looks like the European Commissionners (at least those from the Software and Services unit who were there) are really convinced that libre software represent one of the best oportunities to make Europe be strong in the world software arena. Very interesting too was the focus given to Asia representatives, as if there was more interest these days in what asia is doing to take advantage of the libre phenomenon, than there was the previous years in listening to the American open-source evangelists. (More details about the strategic importance of libre software, big players and Asia, including slides, is in Workshop on Key Challenges for Software and Services Research (21 April), and in (UPDATE) the afternoon’s track on Free and Open Source Software and International Cooperation).
Although the procedures for applying for funding in the FP6 are not really simple and some specific barriers may exist for all to participate, there is a very good oportunity to advance research (and development) in the field of libre software and specifically its asset for European actors with this coming Call 5.
I’ve myself made a (extremely short) presentation about ideas for an IST funded project on interoperable software development platforms during the “networking” presentation cycle, but will post another item specifically on that.
Update : You will find more details (including presentations) about the “Information Day on Strategic Objective 2.5.5 “Software and Services”” (22 April) at : http://www.cordis.lu/ist/directorate_d/st-ds/infoday_stds_220405.htm