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Executive Summary

Executive Summary

Director

Armando Haeberer's sudden death on 11 February was an awful blow for UNU-IIST. Armando had so many good ideas for the Institute, so much energy devoted to putting them into practice, but almost no time at all in office to achieve them.

SARS

There were many cases of SARS during the summer in surrounding areas, so it looked inevitable that it would be a problem in Macao. We decided as a precautionary measure to allow fellows (trainees) to return home if they wished, and return later. Most did -- ironically, mostly those from China. Two staff also spent extended periods in Europe over the summer making research visits, travelling to developing countries to present courses, and establishing research collaborations. In the event there was only one case of SARS in Macao.

New initiatives

There are a number of collaborative projects that we are in the process of developing, and that we hope will come to fruition:

Macao e-Government

The Government of Macao is making available funds for science and technology research and development projects. We have formed a consortium with a government department responsible for implementing e-government in Macao, the University of Macau, and an institute INESC-Macau, to propose a 3-year project to develop e-government services in Macao. The Macao Foundation agreed to fund the project fully, and UNU-IIST signed an agreement with them in December.

UNU Research Repository

We are collaborating with other UNU RTC/Ps to establish an on-line repository of research materials, initially UNU, later we hope broader in scope.

Lake Management

The sustainable exploitation of lake basins, both the water and the land draining into them, needs decision support systems (DSSs) that are very expensive to create. UNU-IIST and UNU-INWEH organised in November 2003 a small international workshop involving water domain experts and computer scientists to investigate the problem and propose a project to tackle it. A prototype system will be developed in 2004 to help in the search for funding for a full project.

Open Source Software

Open source software is gaining in significance, and is likely to have a substantial impact in developing countries. A problem with its adoption is qualification, of establishing or ascertaining its quality. UNU-IIST has formed a consortium with European partners to seek EU funding for a project in this area.

Training

UNU-IIST's main concern is the development of software technology in developing countries, and it concentrates on capacity building through postgraduate training.

Training takes three forms: fellowships at UNU-IIST (21 fellows from 7 developing countries during 2003), fellowships for computer science lecturers and for PhD students at universities in developed countries (6 fellows from 4 countries to 4 partner universities), and schools/courses in developing countries. Schools last 2-4 weeks, have regional participation, and involve a number of courses, some taught by UNU-IIST staff, some by experts from developed countries, and some by people from the host country. In 2003 UNU-IIST organised or sponsored 3 training schools in Argentina, Tunisia, and China. There were some 160 participants from 30 countries. Training courses are taught by UNU-IIST staff, and in 2003 we organised 9 courses in Peru, Macao, Vietnam (3), DPR Korea, Senegal (2) and China.

Research

UNU-IIST needs to maintain its academic excellence through research. Current key research areas are testing, open-source software, object-oriented and component-based development, hardware/software co-design, and hybrid systems.

Publications

UNU-IIST 10th Anniversary Colloquium edited by Bernhard K. Aichernig and Prof. Tom Maibaum of Kings College, London, was published in November. It contains the proceedings of the colloquium organised in Lisbon, Portugal in 2002 as part of UNU-IIST's 10th anniversary.

Additionally in 2003 a total of 16 papers was published in conference proceedings, and 3 papers were published by journals. UNU-IIST has also produced 18 internal technical reports.

Personnel

In September we interviewed four applicants for two Research Fellow positions, and as a result offers were made to two of the four. Dr Antonio Cerone will take up his post in early 2004; the other offer was declined and the post will be re-advertised.

Executive Summary
	Top	Status of implementation of project activities