Call for research ideas

A lot of good and promising research fails to achieve any impact outside of a PhD thesis or some conference publications. Why is this? Researchers often do not have the skills or time to address how their research could be transferred to industry, incorporated into a new product or service, or form part of new business. The resulting public and social benefits which could be achieved are lost, and the intellectual contribution of the work fails to map into real life progress.

Semantic technology seems particularly a victim of this. Despite large amounts of (theoretical) research, prototyping and ideas that are clearly beneficial to society and the public, we notice a lack of using and benefitting from semantics in daily life and business.

Researchers with good ideas and results need to be brought into contact with forward looking and risk taking SMEs who have the technical and business competencies to turn their research into new business. To lower the risk for the SME and to ensure funding for the researcher to develop their idea with the SME, joint European project proposals can be developed.

The Commission has a specific call for RESEARCH FOR THE BENEFIT OF SMEs open for proposals until December this year. This call foresees transnational consortia in which research institutions are funded by the SME partners to perform and transfer research to them. In preparation for this call, STI Research is holding a proposal workshop during ESWC 2011, on May 30, in Crete, Greece.

We are soliciting the best research ideas, which need only the right SMEs and a joint project, in order to achieve deserved worldwide success. Submitted research ideas will be invited to the workshop to present to key decision makers in innovative semantic technology supporting SMEs with a view of building a core consortia and first proposal draft. Don't miss out on this unique opportunity to see your research achieve much more than just academic publication!