Minutes of the AgentLink Management Committee Meeting held 14:00 - 16:00 on the 19th November 1999 at the European Commission, Brussels, Belgium. Present - Michael Wooldridge (MJW, chair - general coordinator) - Yves Demazeau (YD, WP2 coordinator) - Gerhard Weiss (GW, WP3 coordinator) - Leonardo Flores (LF, European Commission representative) - Nick Jennings (NJ, WP2 committee) - Hugo Brailsford (HB, admin coordinator for network) Apologies - Joerg Mueller (WP1 coordinator) 1. Welcome HB reported that AgentLink now has 117 approved 'full' members, with a small number to be added in a final batch of applications to be sent to the EC in the near future. A decision was made to close AgentLink membership applications under the 4th Framework Programme (4FP) - this will be announced at the end of November 1999. New membership applications will be accepted from the beginning of AgentLink II (1st July 1999), if the continuation proposal is accepted. We currently have 122 member information forms from nodes wishing participate in AgentLink II. MJW reported that the rate of expenditure of AgentLink travel and subsistence finances has now been increased. It is now clear that initial estimates regarding the rate of travel and subsistence funding were over-generous. HB estimates that only four out of every five meeting participants who are approved to claim funding actually submit expense claims, and of those who do, the average claim per event is closer to 600 Euro than the initial 750 Euro estimate. Accurate up-to-the minute accounts for AgentLink could not be presented, because Queen Mary and Westfield College finance accounts lag by up to 4 months in reporting, and would not record AgentLink account transactions over the event-intensive summer period. However, best estimates show that approximately 100k Euro are left in the AgentLink accounts, with 6 months of the project remaining. LF reported that only 6 projects were funded in the Universal Information Ecosystems (UIE) initiative, and that no further UIE calls will be issued. 2. AgentLink II - The continuation proposal MJW presented drafts of the AgentLink Fifth Framework Programme (5FP) 3 year continuation proposal, proposal summary and budget (see Appendix). All are complete, with only minor revisions expected. LF set out some criteria upon which continuation proposals from 4FP projects would be assessed. Primarily, AgentLink needs to show that it has been a successful and useful initiative. More specifically, the continuation proposal should demonstrate that AgentLink has become a recognised access point, reference point, and resource base for people working at all levels in the field of agent-based computing, and that it has made qualitative as well as quantitative differences to work in this field. LF agreed to send HB a list of these evaluation criteria so that these aspects of AgentLink's work can be brought out more explicitly in the continuation proposal. YD offered help in generating a summary of WP1 activities for the continuation proposal. A deadline for submission of the 10th December 1999 was agreed upon. LF warned the management committee that he was not sure how long it would take for the continuation proposal to be assessed by the EC. MJW presented a draft budget for the continuation proposal for comment. LF commented that the labour costs in the budget (full time administrator, full time web/creative and money allocated for subcontracted labour) looked high and would need explicit justification in the proposal. MJW explained that it was widely felt that one of the main problems with the AgentLink 4FP budget has been that too little money for labour was applied for. This has had detrimental consequences. It has mean, for example, that the one full-time AgentLink employee has been frequently occupied with everyday and event-based administration, to the exclusion of other activities, and that we have been unable to fund management committee for their AgentLink activities. It was felt that we should explicitly account for the extra labour costs in the continuation proposal budget by mapping them to the overall objectives of the network. LF felt that overall the continuation proposal budget seemed well balanced and that the total sum requested was not unreasonably high. 3. Summer School 1999 and 2000 MJW reported that the first AgentLink summer school (EASSS'99) had been a great success. The event sold out within the first month of early registration, and in the end organisers were limited to 160 delegates by virtue of the size of lecture rooms at the University of Utrecht. MJW noted that 40 of delegates were funded by AgentLink, and that 15 students from the United States were able to attend due to funding from the US National Science Foundation. MJW thanked the event organisers at the University of Utrecht for their invaluable help in putting the event together. HB noted that subsequent to the event over 100 requests for copies of the summer school proceedings had been received, and that as a result copies would be sent to all AgentLink member nodes. HB presented the final accounts for EASSS'99 (see Appendix). The total cost of the event to AgentLink was just under 30 000 Euro. GW presented a formal application to host EASSS 2000 from DFKI, Saarbruecken, Germany (other offers - from GMD and the University of Fribourg - had been received but had later been withdrawn due to lack of available space). All were in agreement that DFKI's track record in event hosting is excellent, that their cost estimate for hosting seemed very reasonable and that their application in general looked very impressive. It was decided that DFKI should be considered as the first choice to host EASSS 2000, despite its slightly disadvantageous location (90 minutes by train from Frankfurt airport). It was also decided that DFKI should be asked to present a budget for 200 and 300 participants, in addition to the budget for 370 participants included in the application. The circumstances surrounding AgentLink's possible continuation into the 5FP are crucial to the planning of EASSS 2000. It has already been determined that, for practical reasons, EASSS 2000 cannot take place before the end of Agentlink's 4FP funding. MJW noted that the critical issue in the planning of the next summer school would be whether AgentLink will be informed of success in their application for continuation funding early enough to be able to plan and publicise EASSS 2000. It was agreed that there would only be enough time to make the necessary arrangements for any kind of summer school event if AgentLink were informed of success in their continuation proposal by the end of March. Notification at this time would probably come too late for AgentLink to organise an event of the same magnitude, and with the same kind of internationally acknowledged lecturers as EASSS'99. LF agreed to discuss these issues with the administrative team dealing with the AgentLink continuation proposal, and to report back to MJW. The possibility of funding EASSS 2000 by another no-cost extension to AL1 was discussed. It was felt that while this was financially possible, but there would be a number of difficulties: * it would disrupt current continuation proposal planning and project budgeting; * would necessitate the employment of a temporary administrator before the start of AgentLink II; and * the costs for EASSS 2000 would not be invoiced to AL until well after the end of AL1. For these reasons it was agreed that a summer school next year could only take place if approval of AgentLink's continuation into the 5FP were received by the end of March 2000 deadline, even if this raised the possibility of EASSS 2000 not taking place at all. MJW suggested that even with only 6 months notification of approval for AgentLink II a small event could probably be put together for the summer - with courses perhaps only running for one day, so as to encourage as many lecturers as possible to attend. It was agreed that this would be the fall-back position for the event, should AgentLink II approval arrive too late for a larger summer school to be organised. It was generally agreed that it would be a great shame for no summer school event to be held in 2000, in the light of the success of this year's event. It was also agreed that for future summer school events, the programme should consist of a small number of key invited courses and a larger number of accepted proposals for courses. 4. SIGs and the Technological Roadmap MJW reported that AgentLink has so far received solid contributions from the MSEAS and I2A SIGs and a draft roadmap contribution from the ABSS SIG. No formal contribution will be expected from the IATA SIG due to its late start and recent administrative reorganisation. The remaining SIGs have agreed to provide their material by December 3rd 1999. It was agreed that the eventual roadmap will be sent to each AgentLink node. NJ agreed that an abridged version of the roadmap should be published in the Journal of Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems; it was also suggested that the roadmap could be published by Springer-Verlag as part of their lecture note series. MJW asked LF whether any AgentLink 4FP money could be used to help assist the SIG coordinators in preparing their roadmap documents. LF said that in preference to the provision of funds for several components of the roadmap, it would be preferable to fund a very professional product. Furthermore, such money should only be used to employ one professional over a period of a couple of months to coordinate the production and assimilation of material from all of the SIGs. MJW to investigate the costs of this offline. 5. Human capital mobility issues YD suggested that AgentLink SIGs be encouraged to consider submitting a network for consideration under the recent 5FP Improving Human Potential (IHP) initiative, and agreed to mail all SIG coordinators with the relevant information. 6. Any other business LF asked AgentLink to help with publicising the 5FP 'Disappearing Computer' initiative. AgentLink will publicise this event through their contacts and in the November 1999 issue of AgentLink News. 7. Date & location of next meeting Co-located with next AgentLink SIG meetings, 21-23 February 2000, DFKI, Saarbruecken. Exact date and location to be announced closer to the time of this event.