PLANSERVE – The State of Play – June ‘03 Lee McCluskey The University of Huddersfield, UK

state of play 20 – 25 interested establishments 10 – 15 here to give talks today, several apologies We still plan to submit for a FET proposal (but this may change after today) and we are on course for a submission within the next 3 months The initial proposal has now widened and become more ambitious – note the lack of the word ‘planning’ in the abstract.

aims of this meeting Introduce each other - our work etc Find out the breadth and depth of the consortium Explore the views on the submission form and aims Agree on a final action plan for submission

roles I have tried to persuade certain individuals to take on special roles in the proposal to lessen my burden… those that have accepted special responsibilities include Daniel Borrajo (Machine Learning Tools) Angelo Oddi (Planning Technologies) Tim Grant (Project Management) Roman Bartak (Scheduling and Constraints) Ruth Aylett (Software Agents)

In brief WHAT: We aim to bring intelligent reasoning services [those that involve time, actions, events, goals, activities, and resources] to the desktop of any scientist or engineer, and make them available as web services to intelligent agents.

In brief WHY: Solving complex, predictive temporal problems using intelligent reasoning lies at the heart of the knowledge economy, and is vital for the continuation and growth of science, society, industry and business. The availability of such a service will revolutionise software agents, tools and services, bringing knowledge-based reasoning capabilities within the reach of the user community. Currently such techniques are inaccessible or used only with the investment of dedicated scientists.

In brief HOW: We need to solve two related, major, technological problems that need the mobilisation of a large number of research organisations around Europe: (i) the generality problem: how to combine and deploy predictive reasoning technology in such a way that the service is capable of solving a wide range of problems (ii) the knowledge acquisition problem: how to create agents that can acquire enough application knowledge to be able to use predictive reasoning effectively.

Requirements for a FET The 5-page initial submission should contain: - A description of WHAT we want to do, making it plain how it fits in within FET open scheme (ie is it high risk? is it proof of concept?), how it fits within the overall IST objectives, and that it will be a significant breakthrough scientifically if it succeeds. - A description of WHY it is important, why objectives are innovative, its potential impact - if achieved why the social/economic benefits will be great in the long term. It should add more evidence as to why it would be a scientific or technical breakthrough of great international significance. - A description of HOW - a short outline of approach that sufficiently supports the plausibility of the new ideas - A Short estimate of resources needed