European Commission s next Research Funding Programme. Intel Position Paper

Transcription

1 Intel Corporation Rond Point Schuman Brussels Interest Representation ID European Commission s next Research Funding Programme Intel Position Paper 1. Introduction This paper will outline Intel s consideration and recommendations towards the European Commission s next Research and Development (R&D) funding programme (FP8 1 ). Intel is actively supportive of the European Union s declared vision and goals set out in EU and the critical supporting strategies of Digital Agenda 3 and Innovation Union 4. This paper is positioned in the context of having the programme help achieve the sustainable and inclusive growth within the EU2020 vision. It also builds on extensive Intel experience from engagement through FP6 and FP7, an experience that has overall been very positive with many valuable results achieved and partnerships established in Europe. Overall Framework Programmes can be viewed over the last number of years as an enabler with respect to an increased Intel R&D presence in Europe. This paper will outline: The technological R&D priorities Intel deems necessary. Some new concepts with respect to the structure and operation of the programme, including comment on Intellectual Property (IP) management. Consistent themes will include: Continued support for Information and Communications Technologies (ICT). A clear and accountable exploitation value driven approach to European funded research, with success indicators that differ depending on the type of research being carried out. 1 Aware that the new programme will not be called FP8 but using FP8 as placeholder term. 2 European Union s growth strategy towards European Union s strategy for a digital economy European Union s strategic approach to innovation P a g e 09 February 2011

2 2. The need for ICT: Technological R&D Priorities Intel pursues and promotes an integrated technology research agenda which begins at a Nano Electronics level and covers the entire technology solution stack all the way up to societal impact. Driving this is a recognition of the vital, unique and integrated role of technology within our modern economies and societies, and a continued need to address challenges at every level of this technology solution stack we term our full research agenda from Silicon and Circuits to Services and Society. Reflecting this perspective, we acknowledge the strong commitment (through various framework programmes) that Europe has demonstrated to a broad yet integrated range of technology research challenges, we strongly advocate continued research support for technology within FP8. Specifically, we back a similar dedicated Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) theme with sufficient budget to achieve critical mass and make an impact. In short many of the major challenges in our world today cannot be tackled without effective advancement and enhanced use of technology. If we accept the fundamental role of technology within FP8, then selecting the correct technology research priorities is critical. In terms of capacity the FP8 programme, we expect, will rival any other publicly funded R&D programme in the world. However, even allowing for this, Europe cannot cover every technology challenge in depth and hope to lead in every domain. Therefore, making the right choices with respect to strategic research priorities is essential. These choices can enhance existing, or create new competitive advantages for Europe, through building on competencies and capacities, or through establishing new. The following are technologies and application domains that Intel suggests should be priorities within FP8. Extending Moore s Law The semiconductor device commonly referred to as computer chip or chip, remains the fundamental building block for all ICT systems, such as personal computers, mobile phones and internet hardware. Ultimately the rich variety of services delivered over the Internet and the development of new capabilities are enabled by the continued miniaturisation of the transistor and the associated increase in capability of the chip'. These advances have enabled the incredible capability of microprocessors, which were composed of 2300 transistors in the early 1970 s to today s devices which are composed of over 2 billion transistors. As Moore s Law continues to drive the miniaturisation of the technology, on an intense two year cycle, new and more complicated technical issues need to be overcome, the pursuit of which creates the greatest R&D engine in Europe. As such maintaining a healthy R&D ecosystem in extending Moore s Law is a key attribute for the future competitiveness of the European ICT industry. 2 P a g e 09 February 2011

3 This includes the intense research effort required to move to a larger silicon wafer diameter in order to maintain the historic economic cost of manufacturing. The semiconductor industry has undergone a wafer size transition approximately every 10 years and the next is anticipated at the end of this decade. As part of this activity, Europe must play a key role in the 450mm silicon wafer R&D in order that European equipment and materials companies can maintain their market share in the semiconductor manufacturing business of the future. Beyond CMOS As the basic MOS transistor device continues to be miniaturised in line with Moore s Law, the challenges associated in making the device at dimensions of a few atoms may not be surmountable. The R&D community and industry need to increase its level of activity in looking for alternatives which can replace the device with new technology concepts, which in turn can continue the increase in capability whilst reducing the cost of computing. There are many options currently under consideration, including devices based on new materials such as graphene or devices based on magnetic materials. However there is no clear winner and all options face huge challenges in delivering technology which is scale-able and produced. Europe s excellence in fundamental science has the potential to deliver breakthroughs in this key area. Mobile Computing Europe has a strong tradition in telecommunications and software and clearly this should be built upon. A key point is that these domains can never said to be complete but rather are constantly evolving. For instance we can observe that telecommunications and software overlapped at a certain stage and level in order to create a world changing reality of mobile computing. Smart-phones, tablets and laptops are now pervasive, with applications emerging at an amazing speed. We see mobile computing continuing its exciting and evolving journey. Embedded Computing The ability to combine compute and communication capability into smaller and smaller devices is driving the related mobile computing phenomenon with enormous market and society impact. We have only experienced the beginning of the Embedded Computing explosion, billions of remote smart devices will bring major advances in for example the Energy, Automotive, Wireless, Machine-to-Machine (M2M) and Healthcare areas. Through establishing a strong presence in these application domains, Europe can be a leader in related Embedded Computing services. High Performance Computing High Performance Computing (HPC) is an established key technology for scientific and industrial R&D. The European Commission has funded the development and deployment of HPC technologies in Europe over many years. Today the top end of HPC is marked by Petascale (i.e operations per second) computing systems. However, many complex phenomena cannot be simulated accurately on Petascale computers, the demand remains 3 P a g e 09 February 2011

4 for Exascale systems with 1000x performance increase, as described in the reports of the international and European Exascale software initiatives. To make Exascale computing a reality, we need to address the challenges of extreme scalability, resilience and power management on all levels: from the processor, memory and interconnect all the way up to middleware, programming models and applications. Europe can and must play a lead role in all of these areas, particularly within the software and application domains which are essential for Exascale hardware/software co-design. With the PRACE centers Europe has laid the infrastructural foundation for the Exascale decade, also the European industry is ready to use Peta and Exascale systems to protect its competitive advantage. Exascale computing requires coordinated global efforts; Europe should maintain its leading role in the infrastructure, the software and the applications. Cloud Computing The increased connectedness of compute devices, from embedded all the way through to high performance computing will see the need for an entirely different global network infrastructure and services. Already the Internet has changed fundamentally how we live our lives and how we conduct business. In a short period we have seen it evolve from a data centred network solution to a knowledge driven and people centred platform. To fulfil its potential as the primary trusted medium for knowledge, connectedness and business enablement, the internet needs to evolve considerably. Issues such as scalability, dependability, security, interoperability and efficiency exist across the areas of sensors, converged networks and cloud-hosted services. Continued collaborative use-case driven research will deliver important reference implementations, as well as progress on open standards and specifications. We note the ambitious Future Internet PPP launching in FP7 and look forward to its success in integrating current and recent research in response to practical, real-world challenges. Visual computing Visual Computing is the processing, transport, analysis and rendering of visual information. It creates life-like and real-time experiences and is a key technology for next-generation, immersive and intuitive computing device interfaces. Applications include entertainment, games, social interaction networks and scientific imaging in geography or medicine and span the range from highest quality 3D or multiview video to 3D data models used in drug and product design. Vision is the most important sense of human beings, so bringing a realistic visual experience to the computer enables more natural interfaces, more productive collaboration and more exciting entertainment. Europe is amongst the leaders in the field, as demonstrated by MPEG-4 in the video domain and the 3D Web extension XML3D. To solidify and extend that role, FP8 should foster and prioritize R&D funding to Visual Computing and its applications this will benefit academic research and industry in the field and support European competiveness in small form factor devices as well as the European content and communications industries. 4 P a g e 09 February 2011

5 Security Europe has been at the forefront of many areas of security, such as hardware security and Trusted Computing. We would like to see this position reinforced. Security attacks are becoming more varied, dynamic, and professional: therefore, it is important to extend the R&D vision to include more research in hardware security as an essential component for new protection mechanisms. Hardware is more resilient than software, but hardware security features and protection mechanisms have been underused. A holistic approach to security as a research direction is an important step to develop more comprehensive defences. Hardware-enabled features in areas such as trust, secure execution of applications, malware protections, and resilience are among the fields of research that can help enable this vision. Finally, we need to continue to support research in cyber-economics and ethnographic studies in the areas of security, in order to enable a better understanding of the evolution of the operational context and user attitudes. Technologies for Successful Ageing Ageing demographics is changing our society. It is predicted that it will greatly impact work practices & retirement, healthcare and how we harness the talents of older citizens for the betterment of our communities. It requires us to research and innovate products and services for the 50+ consumer. Intel invested $30M in the TRIL Centre ( to understand and profile the ageing process. We combine high quality clinical investigation with intensive qualitative research and develop technology solutions to address the physical, cognitive & social consequences of ageing. Europe is culturally sensitive towards caring for its citizens and has led on programs for einclusion and AAL. Europe can lead on healthy & active ageing by bringing together multidisciplinary teams of clinicians, scientists, technologists, designers and anthropologists co-designing with older adults to invent and test in real-world contexts some of the new healthcare paradigms, social connection technologies, as well as many other embedded systems in our communities eg automotive driver assistance systems & traffic management systems Sustainability Few now doubt the importance of our Environmental sustainability challenges and the linked Energy question. It is certain ICT will take a lead role in what is a global challenge, while ICT accounts for 2% of the worlds carbon emissions, a more important consideration is the enabling Eco-technology capabilities that will play a leading role in driving down the remaining 98%. Europe has been and can continue to be global leader in the area of Sustainability. Research in sustainability related technologies is required to enable smart management of the World s resources delivering significant measurable positive impact on the environment, for example in terms of increased energy efficiency and reduced pollution. Europe should continue to drive research challenges in this domain and has the potential to lead the world in the growing challenges of Climate Change and Water management. 5 P a g e 09 February 2011

6 3. Delivering Value Driven Research: Structure and Operation Investing in research needs to be seen as an investment in future value creation. Consistent with this principal Commissioner Geoghegan-Quinn has strongly led with the research premise of from research to retail. Intel supports this with an interpretation that in Europe a full research spectrum needs to drive measureable research exploitation value to Europe s society and economy, and that it is a call for better collective and individual accountability from Europe s research community to this value creation. (The term full research spectrum is used to mean all types of research from exploratory research 5 through to applied research 6 ). Within FP8 to ensure focus on and help achieve this future value creation, Intel advocates a balanced portfolio approach to research projects. This balanced portfolio can be a means to demonstrate the importance of the full research spectrum but critically also helps differentiate categories on this spectrum that represent different types of research, and ultimately allow for varying management criteria and success indicators. A balanced portfolio concept would see FP8 projects categorized and managed in terms of the type of exploitation value expected. Exploratory research would continue to drive new concepts and approaches without necessarily a specific targeted commercial value proposition, as such traditional and established measures of research recognition, citations, and patents remain appropriate. This would differ from applied research projects which would see a greater encouragement and measurement of value driven innovation and even entrepreneurship. Consistently proof of value delivered could become a key requirement for the successful conclusion of an FP8 project whilst the definition of exploitation value should be identified early in the research process. Reward of top ranking, on-going FP8 projects would help drive improved accountability from the research community, and rightly recognise the best quality research. The notion here is to encourage the same sense of urgency, excellence and commitment that is always present in the project proposal stage for successful proposals but is sometimes lacking once projects have won Framework support and are in operation. Simplification should be a continued goal to make it as easy as possible for entities to engage with the FP, to partner with other entities and start doing research. In this context the recent efforts toward an ease of engagement and operation must be commended. 7 However, in general it would seem to be taking more and more time for project partners to achieve agreement particularly around Intellectual Property, and this is a matter of concern. 5 Exploratory Research: Basic research to address fundamental questions, not necessarily clear commercial value channels. 6 Applied Research: Research to address practical questions, likely clear commercial value channel. 7 Commission Communication SIMPLIFYING THE IMPLEMENTATION OF THE RESEARCH FRAMEWORK PROGRAMMES, 29 April P a g e 09 February 2011

7 The need for simple structures and processes with minimum levels of bureaucracy and overhead is broadly accepted. Our experience is that there is one area that dominates when we consider legal and finance operations for framework projects and that is reaching a legal collaboration agreement with the project participants, i.e. the Consortium Agreement. Unfortunately our recent experience is that more, not less, time is being invested in this task. All other finance and legal processes and structures work well. In this section we comment on securing a consortium agreement, general Intellectual Property considerations and the project execution. Consortium Agreement We appreciate that the Consortium Agreement is ultimately a matter for the project partners, however the Commission could help remove a lot of procrastination and overhead that is currently prevalent in the process and which only inhibits the research work. A few basic conditions and structure guidelines driven by the Commission would help a lot. The first idea is that the Commission would mandate that the Consortium Agreement be agreed and signed by partners before a project contract is offered. This would focus and motivate the partners to conclude a workable agreement in a timely manner. Many of the problems and delays experienced in finalising a Consortium Agreement are due to lack of focus and prioritisation by partners. Our recommendation is straightforward: the Commission should make the Consortium Agreement compulsory to be in place prior to the issuing of a project contract. In general when we consider a Consortium Agreement for a Framework project we see two principal factors that drive the level of complexity and difficulty. Firstly the number of partners: the more partners, the more difficult it is to achieve agreement. Second is the type of the research: the more the project is in the domain of applied research, the more difficult it is to reach an agreement as partners tend to be more protective with the prospect of commercial value. In terms of exploratory and/or Open Research 8 it is easier to reach an agreement as there is a general view that this type of research is a second or third order effect for future applied research. This type of the research point is consistent with the balanced portfolio approach introduced earlier in this section, and we advocate it as a driving factor when designing consortia and flexible project mechanisms. Our recommendation is to limit the number of partners on applied research projects (6 would be ideal), each partner with a very clear and complementary contribution and a clear value proposition. The low number is critical to increase the probability of and reduce the time to reach agreement. On the other hand, Exploratory and Open Research projects could see much larger numbers of partners involved. Overall this recommended approach is in a way contradictory to the existing Integrated Project (large and more applied) and STREPs (small and focus on research), but we believe this change would bring about significant operational improvements. 8 Open Research: Broad research question where results and outputs are freely shared and likely published. 7 P a g e 09 February 2011

8 Intellectual Property (IP) In addressing Project Foreground IP and in particular foreground IP ownership, Intel broadly supports the terms and aims currently set out in FP7. The principal of inventor owning the IP is fair, with a clear allowance for joint invention and therefore equal rights. With respect to broad access rights, Intel feels that a participant should not be restricted in any way from using its own foreground IP. This means that appropriate terms should be encouraged where use by a participant of its own project foreground IP is dependent on another participant s project foreground IP. On the matter of transferring ownership to affiliates, given the global nature of the ICT industry and markets, and the entirely integrated nature of technology which is without borders, we believe that the owning entity of FP foreground IP should be able to transfer that ownership in a flexible manner to other affiliated entities, within or outside the European Union. Modern, large enterprises create technology value chains that are global and it is normal for IP to transfer across borders throughout the organisation. Employees knowledge and ideas are used to develop products often through geographically distributed development teams, and the products that these teams develop are in most cases sold in global markets, regardless of where IP is created, legally owned or registered. The European economy, its consumers and enterprises have and will benefit from the flow of IP across borders. Recognizing this reality would encourage more global companies to engage in FP and in doing so make a valuable contribution to the programme. Finally, there is a potential conflict in the Grant Agreement terms between sections II.33 and II.34, which state that access to background IP shall be granted if it is needed to enable beneficiaries to carry out their work or to use their own foreground, and section II.31 which states that beneficiaries may define background needed for the purposes of a project. This ambiguity should be clarified in FP8 so that a party may at its sole discretion determine whether and what background IP to contribute to a project. The FP Community and the quality of project execution through reward The community created and supported by the FP is fantastic. Across the European Union and associate countries solid and long lasting research partnerships and networks have been established as a result solely of the FP. Therefore the human and behavioural aspect of framework is vital, and indeed FP has brought enormous value as a key integration tool to the broader European Project. If we look more closely at one behavioural aspect of the programme we observe a strong and healthy competitiveness and therefore drive for excellence within the proposal phase of framework. The intensity of engagement and quality of work is often at its height at this stage. In some cases, this intensity and excellence can drop off post a successful evaluation and an awarded grant, and the resultant project can fail to live up to the expectation of the proposal. The idea of introducing some type of reward system for top ranking projects and partners has merit. There should be a way to recognise and reward those that perform best and 8 P a g e 09 February 2011

9 produce the best exploitation value in FP8 projects. One way would be to award 2 bonus points on a future proposal evaluation for a consortium that achieved a Good to Excellent rating on a prior related project. Another option would be to grant an automatic 2 year extension for a number of the top ranked projects, this would be based on an acceptable revised and extended project statement of work. Identifying top FP8 partners would be more difficult, one way would be rank partners based on their prior project review evaluations, those that get a Good to Excellent rating on more than 50% of their prior projects could be deemed top ranking partners, a future proposal with for instance 3 top ranking partners involved to be awarded 2 bonus points on evaluation. The trend in FP7 is significantly increased submissions in recent Calls, resulting in more competition between proposals. A lot of time is put into each proposal so with greater numbers being submitted accumulatively there is huge time and effort spent on proposals that are not successful. The Commission in some scenarios has introduced the idea of a two phase proposal process. The first phase which consists of an abstract outline of the proposed consortium and research objectives, acts as a pre-selection with only a proportion of submissions selected for a more detailed and time consuming 2 nd phase. Intel would like to encourage the Commission is adapt this 2 phase submission process more broadly, in the spirit of reducing time and effort on proposals that will not ultimately be funded. 4. Conclusion The European Union s R&D framework programme is a wonderful investment in knowledge creation, people capability and capacity building. Without doubt it increases Europe s competencies and competitiveness on the world stage, and continued programme investment at an equal or greater level is essential. The framework programme in general is effective but improvements can be made, we hope that the feedback and recommendations in this paper will help the next programme be even more successful and encourage greater industry involvement than previous framework programmes. Intel has contributed, benefited and enjoyed our engagement through FP6 and FP7, and we look forward to similar experiences with the new programme. Finally, as stated in this paper, investing in research needs to be seen as an investment in future value creation, continually targeting and measuring this value will be essential for Europe. 9 P a g e 09 February 2011