8 The Off-Shore Programme
- On 2 February 1999, UNU/IIST and the Mongolian Universities Consortium
signed a joint Memorandum of Understanding with the aim to disseminate
knowledge and materials gained by Mongolian University Development
Fellows throughout Mongolian universities.
- On 25 February 1999, the Agreement with Natural Science
Foundation (NSF) of China was reviewed. In the review meeting, both
parties expressed satisfaction with the implementation of the
Agreement. Two jointly supported projects in Nanjing University and
Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunication were highlighted.
Both parties agreed:
- the joint research funding policy will be changed from funding
one or two topics each year to funding one or two selected groups
for a longer period, so that one or two research centers on Formal
Methods in China can be eventually established under the joint
support;
- to organise a 5-day summer school in China on Formal Methods and
their Industrial Applications in 1999; and
- Prof. He Jifeng will join the Discipline Panel of Computer
Science of NSF to provide NSF with consultation for setting the
research agenda and reviewing project applications.
- On 3 March 1999, UNU/IIST and the School of Computer Science &
Technology, Beijing University of Posts & Telecommunication, signed
an MoU to set up another UNU/IIST off-shore research & development
project in China. This project is to do research and development on
Real-time System Modelling and Analysis Technique for Multimedia
Systems, under joint support from UNU/IIST and NSF of China.
- On 26 May 1999, UNESCO Beijing Office, the Macau UNESCO
Center and UNU/IIST signed an agreement for the joint project on
Educational Software and Computer Science Curriculum Development.
With this project, UNU/IIST will train 6 Fellows from China,
Mongolia and North Korea to develop new courses in their home
universities, and at the same time to design educational
management information systems for their universities.
- On 24 August 1999, UNU/IIST and the University of Macau signed
an agreement to formalize an already impressive record of
cooperation in the areas of education and research and the promotion of
science and technology in Macau.
- On 27 August 1999, UNU/IIST and the China Internet Information
Center (CIIC) signed an agreement regarding the provision of
technical support to maintain the newly established Web site
"Macau1999".
- On 27 August 1999, UNU/IIST and the Stone Rich Sight Information
Technology Company (SRSITC) signed an agreement to provide
technical support for the Web site
"Macau1999" with cost to be
shared between these two parties.
- On 13 September 1999, UNU/IIST and the Oxford University
Computing Laboratory signed a Memorandum of Understanding to
collaborate in research and in teaching.
- On 15 September 1999, UNU/IIST and the University of Leicester
signed a Memorandum of Understanding to cooperate in research and
educational activities.
- On 30 September 1999, UNU/IIST and the Academy of Sciences of DPR
Korea signed a Memorandum of Understanding to cooperate in research and
educational activities.
- On 19 November 1999, UNU/IIST and the Chinese Academy of Sciences
Institute of Software (CAS/IoS) signed a Memorandum of Understanding to
collaborate in developing the educational and research activities of the
Chinese College for Software Engineers.
In order to conduct technical dissemination to more people through its
former visiting experts and former Fellows, UNU/IIST has established a
Programme of Off-Shore R&D Projects.
As in the last year, UNU/IIST considers dissemination as one of
its key activities. The aim of this dissemination is
to distribute new research and development techniques and
results in software technology to selected targets in developing
countries and countries in transition. Since UNU/IIST, in its Research
and Advanced Development Projects, uses front-of-the-wave techniques
and pursues further development (i.e. research) of these techniques,
the dissemination activity focuses primarily on propagating the
techniques and results that directly relate to UNU/IIST's Research and
Advanced Development Agenda. In parallel, through its training
activities, and also through institutional agreements with specific
institutions, UNU/IIST provides access to literature (reports, papers)
and free software. UNU/IIST has defined a list of target
institutions, which includes 10 institutions in China, 30 institutions
in Asian countries other than China, 6 institutions in South America
and in Africa, and 2 institutions in Eastern Europe. Institutions from
developing countries are added to the list if their research and
training interests match the areas that are covered by UNU/IIST's
programme. UNU/IIST sends to its targeted institutions a quarterly
selection of up-to-date information on international literature, free
software and technical reports, both from UNU/IIST itself and from
partner institutions, together with instructions on how to procure
such publications. More specifically, each institution receives:
- List of UNU/IIST reports with abstract and URL address
- Selected UNU/IIST reports
- Copies of the tables of contents of 22 important
journals in the area of computer software (See Appendix for the list of
current selected journals). UNU/IIST provides photocopies of a limited
number of articles from these journals upon request
- List of new Technical Reports from 10 internationally known
research groups active in the area covered by UNU/IIST's agenda
- List of new free software packages. (The current list of
free software is given in Appendix B.2.)
UNU/IIST also continues to assist a small number of MoU partners
in building up a core library of reference books, monographs and
journals.
info@iist.unu.edu, 15 March 1999
