Bid for equipment from Essen University (Michael Goedicke)
Application for membership from Pisa University.
RENOIR support for PhD students to go to ASE doctoral consortium.
Correction to the previous meeting minutes: item 6.2: Research fellow appointment already made (Dr Barbara Farbey) is for Industrial Liaison, rather than for the Road Show. The rest of the minutes were agreed.
Barbara Farbey has joined the team to manage the Industrial Liaison aspect of the programme, who has started planning for substantially intensifying the dialogue with the industry. We have also advertised for more Research Fellow positions. Eleven applications were received. A lot of them were inappropriate. Three were short-listed and invited for interview.
The first interview was held and not fully encouraging, since the applicant’s research interests do not coincide sufficiently with these of RENOIR. More candidates are to be interviewed this month.
The first RENOIR cost statement was finally accepted, after a dispute with the CEC over travel cost to the States was adequately resolved.
4.1 The completed application form was received from NASA IV&V. Georgia Tech has not sent an application form and their membership is being suspended until necessary documents are received.
4.2 An application for RENOIR membership was received from Universita di Pisa. The country co-ordinator for Italy supports the application. The board has decided to admit Universita di Pisa to the network.
5.1 The co-ordinator reported that since the last meeting, the Director has approved a total of 10 bids were agreed in the amount of approx. 11k ECU. It was noted that this was a good level of activity given that it was over less than two months, compared to the previous periods.
5.2 The Board discussed one bid by Pro. Bernie Cohen of the City University to find his visit to U. of Lisbon for a month. A total of 3000 ECU is requested. The Board decided to approve the bid, and that Prof. Cohen should be reminded to write a report in proportion to the amount of funding RENOIR provides.
5.3 The CEIRE '98 event (19-20th October 1998):
A progress report by the CEIRE ’98 Organising Committee was discussed. The Organising Committee has circulated a Call for Papers, with wider circulation intended; secured a keynote address by Michael Jackson; good tutorial and workshop programmes have been arranged; also intended are a soap-box and room 101 activities. The venue was decided (Novotel, Hammersmith). The British Computer Society has agree to take over the administrative responsibilities of participant registration etc. The Co-ordinator recommended that since a good level of achievement was evident, the original sponsorship/ underwriting package agreed in the previous meeting is confirmed to CEIRE organisers. The Board agreed that the sponsorship amount is to be released upon request. And the remaining underwriting will be confirmed with the event organisers.
Other comments made on the CEIRE’98 event is that the organisers should bear in mind the factors that led to the success of the RE-Day in September 1997, namely; that it was cheap and fun, which should be made clear to the potential participants. It was also suggested that Sjaak Brinkemper is contacted about giving a presentation on Requirements Engineering for software packages.
5.3 The bid by M. Goedicke to fund a workstation to hold the Renoir Research Training database is agreed, subject to approval by the CEC.
5.3 Current State of Budget and discussion of term extension
The overall level of activity has improved, but the Network remains to be under-spent. A set of budget figures were presented for the next year, incorporating a provision for the appointment of two Research Fellows (in addition to the one recently appointed) for one year. It was suggested that RENOIR will not undertake to employ any of the new appointments for longer than a year. This left a total funding available for networking roughly equivalent to twice what has so far been spent on networking activities during the first two years of the programme. The Board decided to ask the Commission to extend the programme's duration for 12 more months.
6.1 Road Map/ Road Show
We believe that the intellectual maturity to put the road map together has been done. Also, significant work is already in place to start the initiative from. A recruitment will be made to support the activity very soon.
It was suggested to get members together to critique the road map and road show material once it has been put in place.
6.2 Road Show
A research fellow has now been recruited to assist with the Road Show, another appointment is currently being sought.
6.3 Research Training
The completion of the research training database was announced to the remainder of the RENOIR membership on the RENOIR newsletter (which has members additional to the node co-ordinators). Michael Geodicke also made progress on the organization of the winter school.
(Notes added later by Co-ordinator: The following report was received by Michael Goedicke (edited):
Additional announcements will be made, recommendations are welcome. Michael Goedicke also made progress on the organisation of the winter school in the form of the following:
6.4 Research co-ordination
N/A.
6.5 Infrastructure
An e-mail list for all RENOIR members (not only the PIs) has been established at renoir@cs.ucl.ac.uk.
The RENOIR site is as up-to-date as the information sent by members.
The purpose and policies of the RE Newsletter needs to be re-appraised. It might be the case that a more heavily edited version of the Newsletter is more valuable for participants in terms of information provision.
6.6 Industrial Liaison
A presentation by Barbara Farbey about a programme of industrial visits was given, she invited the Board members to suggest more ideas to her. It was commented that many industrial members have not been visited, and that they should be visited and asked about what consultancy services they might want. It was suggested that RENOIR might wish to mount a competition, with a prize for best RE practice.
(Additional note added later by Co-ordinator: Please note that the Commission has advised that visiting industrial organisations OUTSIDE the Network Programme by members to "sell" their technology is a common and approved activity for NoEs. Provided members who are performing the visits do not leave Europe to do so, and that the Co-ordinator is delegated to decide whether the NoE wishes the visit to occur and to fund it. However, as visits will be to non-members, the Commission should be informed in advance so that a note can be left in the file.)
Presentation by Dan Berry is now complete and will be attached to the web very soon (Additional note added later by Co-ordinator: Presentation is now attached, accessible only by RENOIR members).
Nothing to discuss
Anthony will enquire with Janis Bubenko about the Scandinavian Participation Workshop.
The meeting finished at approximately 20:20 hrs.