AGENTLINK UPDATE # 51 -- 21 March 2003

This is the email newsletter of AgentLink -- Europe's Network of
Excellence for Agent-based Computing. The AgentLink WWW site is

                    http://www.AgentLink.org/

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AgentLink III: Plans in FP6

AgentLink Roadmap Published!

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AgentLink III: Plans in FP6

AgentLink had planned to propose a Network of Excellence in the first
call of the European Commission's Sixth Framework Programme. However,
after taking soundings from many people at the Commission, including
several Project Officers, the management committee has decided not to
proceed with a Network of Excellence at this point, but to move
instead for a smaller thematic network, rather like AgentLink II.

This decision has been taken because of the uncertainty surrounding
many aspects of the new instruments including financial and legal
issues, and because of the poor fit for themes in the first call. We
of an NoE in a later call.

In the meantime, we hope to continue AgentLink activities with a
thematic network, and will be mailing technical contacts for AgentLink
members in the coming weeks to be a part of the new proposal.

Watch this space!

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AgentLink Roadmap Published!

Version 1.0 of the AgentLink Roadmap has now been published as follows.

M. Luck, P. McBurney, and C. Preist. Agent Technology: Enabling Next
Generation Computing. AgentLink, 2003. ISBN 0854 327886

Thanks to all those who contributed to the roadmap to make it an
effective document. One of the intended uses for the roadmap is as a
reference for proposals in FP6 and elsewhere, so take note.

Hard copies of the roadmap will be distributed to all members in due
course. If you would like extra hard copies of the roadmap to
distribute at conferences or, in particular, to industrial or other
contacts, mail admin@agentlink.org with details of the distribution,
and we will endeavour to provide them.

The roadmap aims to provide an assessment of the current
state-of-the-art of agent-based computing, and to suggest important
areas for future research and development, both for academia and
industry.

The roadmap is a living document. Its value relies on contribution
from the community in correction and refinement. Please provide
feedback (corrections, omissions, constructive criticism, content,
references, etc) for the next version. The more specific the content,
the easier it will be to incorporate it into the next version.

The roadmap may be downloaded at
http://www.agentlink.org/roadmap/index.html

It may not be downloadable with older versions of some web browsers.