WIT's TSSG group are taking part in a major International Cooperation (INCO) building project funded in the latest round of the EU’s Horizon 2020 programme.
The DISCOVERY project (long name: Dialogues on ICT to Support COoperation Ventures and Europe-North AmeRica sYnergies), officially started on 1 January, 2016 and will run for two years.
DISCOVERY aims at supporting dialogues between Europe and North America (both USA and Canada); and fostering cooperation in collaborative ICT Research & Innovation (R&I), both under Horizon 2020 and US and Canada funding programmes.
According to James Clarke of the TSSG group, “With the above main purpose, DISCOVERY proposes a radically new approach to engage more actively and strategically in supporting dialogues and partnership building for ICT R&I cooperation. At the core of the DISCOVERY project is the Transatlantic ICT Forum that will be established as a sustainable mechanism to support policy debate and to provide opinions and recommendations furthering meaningful dialogues for purpose-driven and mutually beneficial cooperation between Europe and North America in the field of ICT.
"DISCOVERY will specifically focus on key aspects that until now have not been properly addressed in the political dialogue, such as funding mechanisms, ICT policy and regulations, and cybersecurity, as well as ICT priority areas of strategic interest for future partnerships in R&I. Our previous work in building sustainable international cooperation in areas related to cybersecurity (BIC project) and Future Internet (EU-India FI-MEDIA project) put us in a very good leadership position within the DISCOVERY project consortium”.
Clarke continues, “DISCOVERY will also stimulate industry engagement and innovation partnerships between the industry, research and academia, by reinforcing networking between ICT European Technology Platforms (ETPs) and USA/Canada innovation partnerships; providing a new partner search tool; implementing "Doorknock" outreach to relevant USA and Canada funding programmes; and using a unique set of participatory and co-creative methods and people-centric facilitation techniques to stimulate interaction among the groups of participants in project events, such as the setting up of an ICT DISCOVERY Lab and well-targeted capacity-building workshops on both sides of the Atlantic.”
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