SAA, 1st version - Net!Works

eMobility – Strategic Applications AgendaIntroductionI. IntroductionIn recent years, consumer demand for Mobile and Wireless Communications (M&WCs) has become a global massmarket business, from which European organisations have greatly benefited and Europe has consolidated itsleading position in mobile communications. However, uptake of wireless and mobile technologies as an integralpart of professional application systems, designed to be stand-alone or integrated into wider systems, has yet toreach mass market proportions and is largely untapped as a market in Europe and globally. Many small scaleprototypes and some field trials have demonstrated the technical feasibility of solutions, but market exploitationof the results has often not taken place, or not had lasting success, when it was attempted. The reasons whyM&WCs have not yet successfully been integrated into applications on a mass market scale, generatingeconomies of scale and scope, are often not clear and the barriers to progress are often not of a technical nature.Current understanding of the barriers to exploitation is fragmented and exists in partial form in some applicationdomains.The revised Lisbon Agenda, seeing the opportunity presented to Europe, calls for further R&D investment inadvanced applications based on new technologies. Specific strategies and road maps are needed to guideinvestments so that the European economy reaps the maximum benefit from the productivity increase andimprovement in the quality of life that M&WC technologies offer.The launching of a range of European Technology Platforms (ETPs) in recent years in various application sectorsprovides an unprecedented opportunity for the mobile and wireless sector to compare its Strategic ResearchAgenda (SRA) with those of a range of application sectors. The synergies between the domains can now besystematically investigated to develop road-maps and scenarios for the integration of mobile and wirelesscapabilities into a range of mass market applications. Developing such road-maps, and creating awareness of theopportunities in the R&D community, has the potential to provide the European Information and CommunicationTechnology sector organisations with a competitive edge, which will allow them to extend their share of globalmarkets and providing new market opportunities for service and network providers, as well as manufacturers andsystem integrators in the mobile domain. The potential for the applications sectors to enjoy economic success,which common standards, such as GSM and 3G, have brought to the mobile and wireless sector in Europe, couldbe established if applications integrating M&WCs could be based on the development of standard specificationsfor the systems.eMobility‘s aim is to (www.emobility.eu.org) reinforce Europe's leadership in M&WCs, which have createdunprecedented possibilities for people to communicate and become a key driver of economic growth.Additionally, eMobility wants to master the future development of this technology, so that it best serves Europe'scitizens and the European economy. In order to achieve this goal, several activities are being held withineMobility, for which Working Groups (WGs) have been established.A WG on Leading-Edge Applications has been formed, in order to address non-technological aspects related toservices and applications in M&WCs. This WG aims to:establish further links between M&WCs and other areas;find new applications for M&WCs;develop disruptive ideas for R&D in M&WCs;gather further contributions to the SRA (Strategic Research Agenda);establish an SAA (Strategic Applications Agenda).One of the main objectives is to establish links to players in various sectors, to identify applications and serviceswith the purpose of fostering their rapid development through the definition and maintenance of an SAA. As aglobal leading technology sector, the European mobile and wireless community has a lot to offer to applicationssector actors. The SAA intends to capture the mobile and wireless requirements of promising new applications invarious areas, through the road-maps available in these sectors, and identifying synergies between these roadmapsand those of the mobile and wireless sectors, leading to the definition on new joint priorities for researchand development.The task of addressing all areas of applications for M&WCs would require an enormous effort, beyond the reachof this WG. Therefore, initially, it was decided to focus on three areas: Health and Inclusion, Transport, andEnvironment. The first two, Health and Inclusion, and Transport, play a central role in Challenges 5 and 6 ofFramework Programme 7, whereas the third one, Environment, clearly constitutes one of the main concerns ofcivil society. Additionally, given the focus that it has recently received, the area of Future Internet was added as1