 Description of work
The main activities that fall under the responsibility of WP-D are the following:
1) The web-site developed under e-photon/ONe is continued allowing Network outputs, such as publications, public deliverables and teaching material to be collated and made available for public view. This is a key tool in the dissemination strategy. In addition restricted pages allow joint {Network} activities to be developed, a key tool for integration. A bi-monthly Newsletter, which is distributed on a National, EU and International basis, is generated to provide visibility of the Network and its activities. The Web page and Newsletter are linked to other major web-sites, eg BREAD.
2) A series of workshops are organised, some in conjunction with major Photonic Conferences [eg ECOC], to provide opportunity for the Joint Projects (and Virtual Departments) to disseminate their output to the wider European community and international audiences. This supports the objective to build and consolidate on International Links established in the context of e-Photon/ONe.
3) Emphasis is placed on encouraging joint publications, in high quality journals. Mechanisms will be considered to encourage this; for example supporting parallel conference attendance.
4) The NoE must, for practical reasons, have a limited number of consortium partners. However the spirit of the Network is to spread excellence not only within the consortium but also to other institutions undertaking research in the area of photonic networks. It is also important to link to international organisations to ensure that (different) visions of future photonic networks are understood. Thus it is proposed that a particular emphasis of the network is to bring together expert national/international groups either as Collaborative Institutions which actively join research activities, or within special meetings to discuss specific technical issues. Within the EU this will include COST, IST and major national projects. The objective here is to spread and update the Network knowledge base, and spread knowledge of its expertise.
5) The majority of EU research is funded by National Governments, for example through Research Councils. As yet there is very limited visibility at an EU level of individual national research projects, yet their activities often have a direct input/influence on EU funded projects, and determine research directions. Often National Projects involve strong collaborations between academia and industry, providing a realistic view of network evolution. The NoE has the unique strength of having approximately 40 partners spread across Europe, and can activate partners to seek and collate information. It is proposed therefore, to build such a database, and use this to form more focused interactions with photonic network projects.
6) The scale of the consortium, and the international relationships of individual researchers, provides a powerful framework for building and discussing network roadmaps. What is the state of art, what is the vision for photonic networking, and how is the gap to be filled? Increasingly photonic networking is being considered for non-telecoms applications, such as a photonic Grid networks. It is proposed that the NoE
(a) develops its own roadmap vision in conjunction with EU national and IST projects [including COST etc]
(b) organises an international workshop to swap and compare map visions and to edit strategic guideline documents with Japan/China/USA for example. Such activities will cover the Telecoms, Photonic Grids and possibly Interconnects, as represented by the Joint Projects.
|