International Activities

Peter Kirstein has spent much of his career in international activities. Besides working for substantial periods in Switzerland and the US, he spent 6 months in Russia in 1962. He has been a visiting Professor at Nihon U in Tokyo, and External Examiner in the U. of Malaysia in Kuala Lumpur. He has consulted to private companies in six countries

The majority of his research has been international. In 1973, he established one of the first two international nodes of the Arpanet, playing a very active part in the ensuing SATNET activity, which covered five countries. The Early UK Internet Activities. He led a group that continued to provide the principal Internet link between the UK and US during the '80s, during which time he was responsible for both the .UK and .Int domains. He has continued to collaborate in US DARPA programmes ever since. He has led half a dozen European projects in computers and communications funded by the European Commission - e.g. MICE, MERCI, MECCANO and 6WINIT, participating in some dozen more - e.g. ICE-CAR, COIAS, ANDROID and 6NET . Currently, he is leading a project to provide satellite-based Internet access to the Newly Independent States in the Southern Caucasus and Central Asia (SILK/SPONGE/OCCASION) funded by NATO, Cisco and the European Commission). He is also participating in several European projects looking at the problems of embedded systems and emergency management (RUNES/U2010) .

He chaired the International Collaboration Board (ICB), responsible for unclassified defence research collaborations, throughout its life (1983-2004), and served on the Networking Panel of the NATO Science Committee (Panel Chair 2001). He has been on Advisory Committees for the Australian Research Council, the Canadian Department of Communications, the German GMD and the Indian ERNET Project (for the UNDP).