For a global consensus for interoperability and standardisation

In the context of the globalisation of exchanges, the adoption of information society technologies plays a key role in supporting - or, when wrongly designed, in impeding - the development of the information society and the sustainable development of the economy. Recent examples of the dissemination of key technologies world-wide: mobile communications, computer operating systems and user interfaces, the Internet, and smart card technologies to name just a few, have demonstrated that dissemination is facilitated when such technologies are made to inter-operate with each other and follow standardisation agreements. Then the technologies bring more value to the users, and enhance economical growth more effectively. However, it is also widely accepted that the standardisation process of today's technologies differs from the past in that the agreements on standards have to be reached upstream rather than after the research and development stages. The GSM standard or the world-wide-web consortium are vibrant illustrations of the benefits of such "upstream" co-operation. As it is demonstrated through such examples the take-up of the technologies is faster and more beneficial to the economy and to society at large when standards are achieved during the research and development phases.

The European research framework programme deals with pre-competitive research, development and demonstration activities. It is a programme "open" to international participants and its rules and guidelines for intellectual property rights are tailor-made for natural competitors to undertake co-operative tasks at a level that does not interfere with their normal competition. It thus constitutes an excellent framework for co-operation between European and non-European actors providing them with the opportunity to reach "upstream" consensus in the research and development phases.

As a part of this European research framework programme, the IST Programme supports research and technological development in information society technologies. It’s primary target for international co-operation are those organisations among the main competitors of the European industry in particular in the USA, Canada, Australia, Japan, Korea, or in Taiwan. It provides the players in that field with a vital opportunity to interact with their main competitors and supports their progress towards consensus by offering a tailor-made co-operation framework increasing the confidence of all participants.

The successful information systems of tomorrow are likely to be those that will cleverly integrate the best components and make the best use of the leading-edge technologies, wherever they are being designed. Many such technologies are available from European research organisations, but many others are produced by the USA, Canada, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, or by some emerging economies in the world.

The IST Programme must ensure that its European participants can benefit from input from such leading organisations in the world. It can be proactive by facilitating contacts and by establishing the framework for the leading technologists in the world to contribute to research in IST. It also interconnects the European research networks with the rest of the world, including to Asia through the TEIN initiative launched with Korea in the ASEM context.

The IST Programme primarily targets those researchers in the most advanced countries (in particular in the USA, Canada, Australia, Korea or Japan) as well as in very specific pockets of excellence in some emerging countries from Asia or Latin America for instance.)

The markets for IST have proven now to be global. But IST, information systems, electronic devices, Internet services can only be sold if sufficiently "customised" to, and adopted by the consumers wherever they are located in the World. Such "customisation", which is highly culture-dependant, was once implemented by the development teams late in the product life-cycle. It now needs to be tackled much earlier in the product life-cycle. Later adaptation, maintenance, and upgrade of products also require intense interaction with the consumer base. It is thus increasingly important to involve "local" actors when dealing with such issues when sensing and penetrating a market abroad.

The large IST companies are well aware of the issue, and establish partnership with Universities and with other organisations to develop research and technological development activities in the countries they target. Such partnership is very difficult to establish for the smaller-size companies even though many of them wish, and must, target markets outside of their national borders.

In Europe the IST Programme primarily aims at facilitating the entry of European smaller-size companies into such partnership. It promotes take-up activities and business contacts in the most promising IST markets, including Asia and Latin America, Russia, and, to a smaller extent, the Mediterranean countries in Africa and in the Middle East.

These "candidate" countries contribute to the budget of the European research framework programme, and they participate in the same way as the Member States of the European Union. For their accession to be successful in the field of research and technological development, it is vital that the corresponding communities, industry and academia, in the candidate countries be at par with the research organisations established in the European Union. The candidate countries thus maintain and develop their research capabilities in areas of excellence, and get further involved in co-operative research of medium-term industrial, economic, and social added value.

Further to this, a political objective is to prevent the candidate countries from falling behind on the path to the Information Society. Technical areas for the candidate countries to invest in, including network interconnectivity, IST for health, and IST for education and training, have been identified, in which developments should be sustained. This is a goal for Europe, but not only. It should also be a goal for other industrialised countries in the world, several of which have also undertaken action there, the USA, Japan and Korea in particular.

The IST Programme supports the participation of organisations from the candidate countries in all areas, and encourages their involvement in those areas deemed of more strategic interests to their economical and societal development.

Just the European IST industry and research is missing several thousands of IT-skilled technicians. Long term solutions may be found within the industrialised world by improving curricula and more generally the training and education systems. However, shorter and medium term needs require a different answer. No reservoir exists within the industrialised world to fill in the gap. Meanwhile, such IT-skilled technicians remain unemployed in some developing or emerging countries - e.g. in Russia, Egypt, Costa Rica - and also in some of the above-mentioned candidate countries - e.g. Romania, Bulgaria.

For the Industry and particularly the smaller companies to be able to confidently access the IT skill pool in the emerging and developing countries a framework could be put in place. This implies inter alia the certification of the skill offer and the formalisation of the employment or the subcontracting relationships. However, a brain drain from the developing countries towards the industrialised countries is to be avoided.

The IST Programme supports accompanying measures dedicated to the re-training of engineers in the above-mentioned candidate countries, to the organisation of the outsourcing of research software developments in Russia, as well as to other measures in the developing and emerging countries, and in some candidate countries. But this will not be enough, and intercontinental, global initiatives may bring a better solution to the problem.

In the context of the United Nations as well as under the umbrella of the G8, the European Union has established a daring policy to fight the causes of the digital divide still widening between the richest and the poorest countries in the World. The poorest countries are also those where the take-up of the modern technologies of the Information Society is either slow or limited. Reasons range from vital problems to be solved in priority to long term policy issues and include lack of investments, poor infrastructure weaknesses of education systems and the general state of poverty affecting institutions, industries and individuals’ ability to join the information society.

One of the very few assets of the developing countries lies in their small number of highly skilled scientists who have been trained in the most advanced industrialised countries. Europe has trained many of them, facilitating the European IST research community’s ability and willingness to co-operate with such specialist’s who returned in their country, or who plan to do so. Such highly skilled scientists in the developing countries understand the issue and are often influent in regard to their country's policies.

The IST Programme of the European Union is targeting this community of highly skilled scientists in the developing countries, those who have been trained in Europe, with a view to strengthening the links that exist with them. It aims at providing them with enough resources to continue being active in their field once they are gone back home, thus supporting the development of the scientific and technological basis, and therefore the economy of their country.

The implementation of the above-described international co-operation strategies is a task in the long run. The European Union programmes are not unique in the world, but they provide a framework particularly efficient for international and intercontinental co-operation. Their objectives as regard international co-operation, as they have been described here, are rather universal. Surely enough other organisations and other countries in the world may wish to develop similar initiatives.

The author and the foundation for "the Promotion of International Technological Co-operation for Humanistic ends" are available for providing further contacts and for acting as a talk-shop, a forum where those interested can refine their ideas and co-ordinate their individual or national initiatives in that matter.