ITEA 2, the follow-up to the successful ITEA programme, is a strategic pan-European programme for advanced pre-competitive R&D in software for Software-intensive Systems and Services (SiS). ITEA 2 stimulates and supports projects that will give European industry a leading edge in the area of SiS (in which software represents a significant segment in terms of system functionality, system development cost & risk and system development time).
Europe has made great strides in the field of Software-intensive Systems, but – as set out in chapter II – it faces enormous challenges in the future. To meet those challenges, a strong R&D effort remains essential. As the current eight year’s programme is coming to an end, ITEA and its founding fathers – a selection of Europe’s best and brightest high-tech companies – propose ITEA 2, an even more ambitious public-private R&D programme for Software-intensive Systems. Over its lifetime, ITEA 2 aims to generate 20,000 person-years of R&D in the European Research Area through a combined total of more than 3 billion Euros in public and private R&D investments in Software-intensive Systems.
The central aim of ITEA 2 is to build on the success of its predecessor and to further strengthen Europe’s position in the area of embedded Software-intensive Systems, driven by a top selection of leading companies in Europe’s key industries. ITEA 2 also seeks to unify Europe’s fragmented R&D efforts, while broadening even further the role of academia and SMEs in its projects. The programme will pay particular attention to projects that can strengthen Europe’s position in the negotiation of worldwide standards in the field of Software-intensive Systems.
ITEA 2 will maintain ITEA’s successful focus on the Software-intensive Systems industries that depend on embedded software, extending the scope by an additional open domain to address novel emerging applications in, for example, cognitive, bio- and nano-technologies. ITEA 2 will also continue ITEA’s proven bottom-up approach, will further develop ITEA’s roadmap and will remain an essential complement to MEDEA+, the EUREKA cluster programme that focuses on micro-electronics and nano-technology.
ITEA 2 will pay particular attention to the improvement of Europe’s performance in time-to-market and to fighting the ‘European Paradox’, i.e. our failure to translate excellent R&D into commercially successful new products and services. On the one hand, it will extend its scope to include more downstream activities, moving from R&D to R&D&D (Research and Development and Demonstration). On the other hand, ITEA 2 aims to introduce greater flexibility and agility in order to speed up its own procedures, while maintaining ITEA’s low overheads.
