Over a year after the preparations of the Networked Electronic Media (NEM) industrial initiative began, the NEM Technology Platform was officially launched on 29 June 2005, in Brussels, Belgium. The event served as an occassion for the introduction of the NEM Strategic Research Agenda and was followed by its first general assembly the next day.
The NEM initiative has grown from the tight cooperation of its eight founding members to enlisting over 140 participants by the time of the introduction of its Strategic Research Agenda. NEM involves stakeholders from a variety of industries such as telecommunications, electronics, audiovisual and media, and has also introduced structures for maintaining strong links to the European Commission, national and regional initiatives through Mirror groups, regulatory and standardisation bodies, as well as Global actors.
"The main objective of the NEM Platform is to accelerate the pace of innovation and the convergence between the audiovisual, content and telecom sectors" states the NEM strategic research agenda. The document identifies two phases for the research agenda spanning the periods of 2007-2010 and 2010-2015 and foresees an investment of 3.5 billion euros over this time period accompanied by the creation of 1.5 million new jobs within the scope of NEM. The NEM technology platform will organize its activities within working groups to identify key technologies, challenges and priorities and gathers input from stakeholders for regular revisions of the NEM strategic research agenda.
In addition to the identification of technological, business, societal and regulatory challenges the NEM strategic research agenda proposes to address sustainability challenges by significantly enhancing the coordination of priorities and goals of National R&D programs and setting up Member State Mirror groups to facilitate integration of European R&D efforts and serve as a forum of debate for the NEM Strategic Research Agenda. Furthermore, the NEM SRA calls for enhanced public/private partnerships coordinated at the Pan-European level to ensure the optimum use and maximum impact of research investments and efforts within each individual Member State.
Sources:
Networked and Electronic Media website:
http://www.nem-initiative.org/