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"Telework 1998":
Annual Report from the European Commission

5.2 The Fifth Framework Programme: status medio 1998

The basic task of the European Union’s research and technological development policy is to ensure that advances in knowledge and technologies serve the purposes of the Union and its policies. From this perspective, the two inseparably linked objectives of this policy, taken into account during the preparation of the Fifth Framework Programme proposal from the Commission⁹⁰, are:

1. to maintain and enhance, in the context of a genuine ‘European research area’, the research potential of European laboratories, universities and companies and their ability to produce knowledge of the highest level and high-quality technologies
2. to help ensure that European research serves the Union’s economic and social objectives, in other words, European research at the service of the citizen and European competitiveness in a global framework.

For the first time, this Commission proposal for the Fifth Framework Programme brings together in one Key Action (Key Action 2 of the Information Society Technologies programme) all actions related to helping individuals improve the quality of their working lives; helping companies operate more efficiently,, as well as in trading goods and services. The Objectives and RTD priorities of the Key Action are defined in the Specific Programme as follows:

It is the intention to form the Key Action around four groups of Action Lines which, while each has its own separate focus, are integrated together.

1. The first group of Action Lines (Flexible, mobile and remote working methods and tools: Human Workspaces, Shared Spaces for Collaborative Work, Dynamic Networked Organisations) are those that bring together the needs of the individual and then those of teams and finally those of organisations, and their interaction with their environments.
2. The second group (Management systems for suppliers and consumers: Digital Design & Development, Customer-Product Relationships, New Marketplaces, Financial Services for Trade & Commerce) lead naturally on through the development of new goods, systems and services, the management of customer relationships, and the trading and the financing of products and services in the new market places.
3. These two groups are underpinned by a number of Action Lines related to security (Information security: Digital Object Security Management, Acceptable Authentication Architectures, Components & Services for Non-Cash Payments).
4. The whole is tied together by Action Lines that cut across the Key Action and link through to activities elsewhere in the IST Programme and in the other thematic programmes and in other European policies.

This grouping, however, is subject to further development of the Work Programme for the IST Programme. It is the intention to consult with an external advisory group in October 1998, and to propose the Work Programme to the European Council of Research Ministers by the end of the year, followed by a proposal to the IST Management Committee.

Consequently, the first Calls for Proposals are to be expected in early 1999.

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Page last updated: 12 October 1998