e-Photon/ONe+ consortium description

In the framework of the Information and Communication Technologies, Europe can claim an international leadership in the field of photonic technology in general, and of optical networks in particular, from both a technological and theoretical point of view. European scientists from both universities and industries play a leading role in research on optical network technologies and architectures worldwide, while telecom operators are widely deploying next-generation optical networking solutions in long-haul as well as metro and access scenarios. During the past ten years several projects have addressed these topics, with a significant involvement of European manufacturers providing the technology necessary to implement testbeds and demonstrators. All these projects have been successfully completed and some of them obtained a very large, worldwide attention because of the exceptionally advanced level of the technology involved. Most of the institutions involved in e-Photon/ONe+ have actively participated and successfully collaborated in a number of those projects.

This NoE, built upon the experience gained within the previous NoE e-Photon/ONe, funded within the 1st IST call of FP6, aims at further integrating the outstanding expertise on optical networking available all across Europe, in order to provide the widest support to manufacturers and operators as well as to stimulate spin-offs from the academic world exploiting the obtained results. Based on the composition of e-Photon/ONe with a few additions and withdrawals, the set of participants to e-Photon/ONe+ realises a very rich and outstanding research team, representing a large (17) number of European countries, and including also a significant participation of telecom operators. In particular, the proposed NoE involves 40 partners, coming from 14 member states (Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, Poland, Portugal, United Kingdom), 2 candidate countries (Croatia, Turkey) and an associated country (Norway). The consortium is composed by 30 universities and other higher education institutes, 3 telecom operators, 3 manufacturers, 4 non-profit research centres.

The large size and diversity of the e-Photon/ONe+ consortium makes effective integration a major challenge, and one of the main targets of the NoE activities. With respect to e-Photon/ONe, some partners withdrew from the consortium. This happened for some academic institutions and some industrial partners and operators that could not successfully participate to the integration process. On the other hand, several requests by institutions (both European and non-European) not belonging to the original e-Photon/ONe consortium were received for joining the project. While e-Photon/ONe government bodies decided not to accept new partners, the role of Collaborating Institution was established, allowing full participation to the project activities at zero budget. The large number of applications (14 received in the first e-Photon/ONe year) for becoming a Collaborating Institution was a recognition of success for the project. e-Photon/ONe+ will maintain the role of Collaborating Institution, which allows the participation of external organisations according to a plan of activities proposed by them and agreed by the JPA Committee, with the consequent spreading of excellence beyond the consortium itself. Their participation will be limited to certain tasks and no budget allocation will be foreseen for their activities.

However, besides the Collaborating Institutions, new partners with respect to e-Photon/ONe were included in the e-Photon/ONe+ consortium, mainly selecting excellent non-academic institutions that showed significant interest in the project activities, and strong commitment to the integration effort.