Raising awareness for knowledge technologies

Bringing the results of investment in the field of Information Access and Filtering more into the eye of potential exploiters and developers not currently involved in EC-supported RTD, is one of key aims of IST-project MULTIPLE. In doing so it hopes to increase project result utilisation and investment in shared-cost projects.

Tweb is the key

The key initiative of the MULTIPLE project, according to project leader Laurie Causton, is KTweb, which aims to provide a broad-based community-building and awareness-raising service for digital content, media and knowledge technologies.

„Essentially KTweb aims to support and promote EU research activity in these technologies. We have succeeded in building a high visibility, and our Web portal is currently experiencing around 50,000 page hits per month. This portal provides relevant news and event information, a project directory and a community directory of leading KT (knowledge technology) actors, product showcase, articles, case studies and fact sheets, links and other resources,“ Causton says. „We have almost 800 registered users and community directory members.“

„We were also given the responsibility to prepare the exhibition presence for three units of DG Information Society at the FP6 Launch event in Brussels last year,“ he says, adding: „We also publish a full-printed directory of FP5 KT research projects.“

Uniting industry and academia

According to Causton, the KTweb workshop ’Knowledge technology research – meeting the needs of industry’, held July 10 in Brussels, was conceived to examine the apparently common perception that EU research succeeds in making advances but too infrequently delivers anything tangible that industry can use.

„Therefore we focused on three areas of knowledge technology – information retrieval, agent technology and Semantic Web – and brought together speakers from industry and academia to offer complementary perspectives on research activity in each area,“ Causton says.

The aim was to identify if research activity was addressing the needs of business and industry and, if not, what should be done. The workshop, which attracted nearly 40 delegates, was chaired by Professor Nigel Shadbolt of Southampton University (UK), a leading figure in KT research and Director of the UK’s Advanced Knowledge Technologies initiative.

Together they suggested that:

  • More research should be undertaken specifically focusing on contextual retrieval, personalisation and user profiling
  • There should be a review into the nature of academia/industry collaboration, to identify how such collaboration could be improved
  • There should be a greater focus in research projects on real-world applications and on the tools necessary to achieve them
  • Consideration should be given to addressing the issues of trust and provenance in future research work programmes.

The latest workshop, titled ’Knowledge and content technology research – the past and the future’, was a larger event held in Luxembourg on December 2-3. It included: details of the plans for future research opportunities in the Sixth Framework Programme (FP6), presentations of project successes from the Fifth Framework Programme (FP5) and selected new FP6 projects, as well as case studies of successful commercial exploitation of research. Keynote addresses included Ora Lassila, Nokia Research Fellow and one of the initiators of the Semantic Web, and Michael Brodie, Chief Scientist of Verizon.

As far as future plans are concerned, Causton notes that as the MULTIPLE project finished at the end of 2003, the December workshop „is essentially our swan song.“

„However, in view of our strong user base, we are exploring ways in which we can continue to offer all or some of these services in the future, even if at a reduced level,“ he concludes.

Contact:
Mr. Laurie Causton
Erin S.A.
2, Place Virchow
2671 Luxembourg
Tel: +352-2-6485025
Fax: +352-2-6485026
Email: laurie@erin.lu

Source: Based on information from MULTIPLE.

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