This workshop is part of the EU-NSF strategic research workshops organised by ERCIM under the auspices the European Commission (programme IST-FET) and the US National Science Foundation (CISE-NSF division), to identify key research challenges and opportunities in Information Technologies. The workshops are intended to facilitate brainstorming and awareness around potential breakthroughs in innovative domains, stimulate research activities and scientific discussions of mutual interest.
Participation is by invitation only, and each workshop will be attended by a total of 20-30 international researchers and key players from both Europe and the US. One important result of each workshop will be a scientific report identifying research challenges in the domain. Each participant at the workshop will be required to produce a position paper on a selected topic, which will be the basis of the discussions held at the workshop.
The programme of the workshop reflects the content of the new EU research action “Life-like perception systems” (LPS). In order to stimulate an exchange of ideas the workshop will be held at the opening of the call for proposals of the LPS initiative and in connection with the IST-FET Information Day on LPS.
Objective of this workshop
Bionics is a very broad scientific discipline seeking to build artificial systems based on biological ones, such as building of hardware or software inspired by the neurosciences. The objective of the EU-NSF workshop is to concentrate on bio-inspired information technologies, specifically those related to the perception-action mechanisms of the living systems. The applications of research could be the extention of machine capabilities, or the augmentation of human senses. The workshop will mainly focus on the algorithmic and methodological aspects of the domain, but does not exclude grounding or embodiment of the concepts, e.g. questions of equipment or device development. New generations of human-computer interfaces, new paradigms for pattern recognition, including sensing patterns like infra-red vision, olfactory systems or sound analysis are some of the prospective questions that will be addressed.
The results of the workshop
The results and the scientific report of the workshop are intended to serve as a basis for future collaboration between the EC and the NSF. These results will also be widely circulated within the scientific community for discussion and comments. The final copies of the reports will be sent to ISTAG, the European Science Forum, STOA, members of the EU Parliament, the Institute for Prospective Studies, Academia Europea, EURO HORCS.
Therefore, on June 20, a Discussion Session on main directions of Future technologies of Bionics will be organized for the participants, including program managers from both sides of the Atlantic.
In addition, combining the workshop with the IST FET Information Day (on June 18) on the Life-like Perception Systems (LPS) initiative will foster the setting up of joint R&D projects in the domain discussed.
