ERCIM Meetings at GMD
by Siegfried Münch and Eckart Bierdümpel
Slovakia is the fifteenth member of ERCIM. On 29 May 1998, the Slovak Research Consortium for Informatics and Mathematics (SRCIM) joined the European Consortium of national informatics research institutes. The Director of the Department of Computer Science of the Comenius University, Bratislava, Prof. Dr. Banislav Rovan, and the Directors of the ERCIM member institutes signed the membership agreement during this year's spring meeting of ERCIM held from 25-29 May 1998 at GMD's headquarters in Sankt Augustin. About 100 computer scientists participated in this meeting.
Three workshops held on 26 May discussed the following subjects which are important to the development of common ERCIM research focuses:
- health information technology
- fluid mechanics
- database technology.
The Executive Committee met on 27 May. They prepared the 10th anniversary of ERCIM and discussed the recruitment of additional personnel for the ERCIM Central Office, the reports on work group activities, the fellowship programme and the acceptance of new members. Another subject of the discussion was the election of a new chairman since the chairmanship of Christos Nikolaou, FORTH, will end by August, 1998. Eckart Bierdümpel from GMD was suggested as candidate for chairmanship and Seppo Linnainmaa from VTT as candidate for vice-chairmanship.
On 28 May, GMD presented some of its activities. Martin Reiser, head of the Institute for Media Communication gave an overview of current projects. The institute combines the key technologies of multimedia and telecommunication areas to develop innovative applications for the fast growing market of electronic media and the Internet.
Projects of the System Design Technology Institute were presented by Thomas Christaller, eg in the fields of robotics and artificial intelligence. Thomas Lengauer reported on the activities of the Institute for Algorithms and Scientific Computing to develop methods and tools for the computer simulation of complex applications in natural science. His presentation focused on activities in the field of molecular bioinformatics.
A tour of the institutes enabled the visitors to gain insight into four activities: Cyberstage and the Virtual Studio, GMD's Net Lab, the support of cardiologic diagnosis by enabling systems and 3D ultrasound and new results of the development of shared workspaces in the World Wide Web as basic support for cooperative work.
The ERCIM meetings ended with a meeting of the Directors on 29 May. The subjects of discussion were the 1997 management report of the ERCIM office and the consolidated budget. The outgoing chairman of the Executive Committee, Christos Nikolaou, presented the report on the past six months. In addition, the Committee discussed legal problems and possible activities to be planned for the 10th anniversary of ERCIM in 1999.
As successor of Dennis Tsichritzis from GMD who was ERCIM's President for four years, Gerard von Ortmerssen, CWI was elected ERCIM President. Stelios Orphanoudakis from FORTH and Pekka Selvennoinen from VTT were elected vice-Presidents. The Executive Committee's suggestions for the election of the chairman and vice-chairman were accepted.
The next ERCIM meetings will be held in the first week of November in Amsterdam.
Please contact:
Siegfried Münch - GMD
Tel: +49 2241 14 2303
E-mail: siegfried.muench@gmd.deEckart Bierdümpel - GMD
Tel: +49 2241 14 2256
E-mail: eckart.bierduempel@gmd.de
