IST 2004 Event: The Hague "Netherlands Congress Centre", 15-17 November, 2004

Brussels, 06 May 2004

Welcome to the IST 2004 Event - Participate in your future

This year's edition of the European Commission's most important Information Society Technologies (IST) event is designed in cooperation with the Dutch Presidency. The IST 2004 event will once again include a conference, an exhibition of research results and networking facilities for the participants. The overall themes are "People" and "Economy". This year the event will bring together not only researchers and companies, but also politicians and interested citizens of Europe.

IST 2004 at a Glance

IST 2004 will address European policies, strategies and research activities in all areas of the Information Society.

The themes are selected to reflect the event's nature to highlight the path towards the desirable future.

The event will highlight future scenarios and a variety of activities supporting those scenarios

The main theme is:

IST 2004 - Participate in your future

People and Economy

The event is based on following 4 elements:

• The Conference with the plenary sessions and the thematic sessions (max. four in parallel)
• The Exhibition, including the Dutch pavilion
• The Networking event
• The IST Prize event and exhibition

In all of these there are four crosscutting themes which force the different elements to glue to each other's, to give coherent messages to the key audience groups. The conference programme content is targeting to the policy issues of research and the long-term perspectives and trends in the IST affecting the research agenda or the research ambitions.

The exhibition is showing to the event audience, including the general public the highlights of the developments towards the policy objectives elaborated in the conference part. The conference sets the context to the exhibition themes, and the exhibition reinforces the notion that a lot is actually happening in the IST research field fostering the policy goals and contributing to the policy development.

The networking event has the role of "filling the gaps" of the research needed in the IST research agenda by facilitating research team and consortium building to respond to the calls. This is especially the case in the context of the IST Work programme 2005-2006, which will be published at the event.

The conference programme should appeal to decision-makers from the public sector, private industry and the world of research as well as to interested citizens, especially young people and students, sharing a common challenge: to improve the prosperity, security and quality of life for all Europeans through the development of a citizen-centred Information Society.

Major strategic initiatives will be presented and debated: from IST research policies and the establishment of a European Research Area in the sector to the roll-out of broadband and mobile services and telecom regulation. Other conference workshops will focus on identifying tomorrow's major technological trends and organizing the European research required to turn vision into reality.

As in 2002 and 2003, the IST conference workshops will be complemented with:

• networking sessions, where companies and researchers meet to discuss joint research projects;
• the IST 2004 Exhibition, displaying the best European research projects in the sector, whether they stem from EU, national, regional or corporate research programs.
• The Entrance Zone, moreover, will feature the 20 new, as well as several previous Winners of the European IST Prize to celebrate its 10th anniversary.

2 Calls for Ideas (closing Date 17 May)

As in 2002 and 2003, you can help to shape one of Europe's largest IST events through our Calls for Ideas for Conference Workshops and Exhibits:

• propose your idea for a conference workshops here;
• propose to exhibit your research project or company research here;

As in previous years, the IST 2004 Calls are open to all - submissions will be treated equally during the evaluation, whether or not they are related to projects funded by the EU's Information Society Technologies (IST) research programme. A priority will be given to 'integrated proposals' involving workshop discussions and research exhibits.

The Commission will:

• pre-define some of the conference workshops and exhibits (note that the Conference Workshop Proposal Form allows you to propose either a complete workshop or your own participation within a workshop);
• spotlight a set of Topics in which it is particularly interested. This said, proposals in other areas are still welcome and will be considered on their merits.

Applicants will be informed of the results in June.

In August a separate call for Networking Sessions will be opened.

Further Information

This website will continue to evolve, with details of the accepted workshops and exhibits appearing after the evaluation in June. Until then:

• Submit your ideas for workshops and research exhibits;
• Subscribe to the IS-newsroom to stay up to date throughout the year;
• Promote the Launch of the IST 2004 Web Site to your colleagues;
• short films on IST 2003 are available for download from the IST 2003 website;
• Find out more about the EU's current IST Research Programme;
• Find out more about the IST Results of the IST Research Programme;
• Find out more about the city of The Hague and its environment;
• Registration and Subscription: study our Privacy Policy.

IST 2004 is organized within the framework of the Dutch EU Presidency by the Commission's Directorate-General for the Information Society, the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs and the The Hague region.

DG Research
http://europa.eu.int/comm/dgs/research/i ndex_en.html
Item source: http://europa.eu.int/information_society /istevent/2004/index_en.htm