Project acronym: QUESTION-HOW
Project Full Title: Quality Engineering Solutions via Tools,
Information and Outreach for the New Highly-enriched Offerings from W3C:
Evolving the Web in Europe
Project/Contract No. IST-2000-28767
Work package 4, Deliverables D4.3 and D4.4
Project Manager: Daniel Dardailler
<danield@w3.org>
Author of this document: Ivan Herman <ivan@w3.org>
Date: Monday, July 28, 2003.
An earlier report on W3C Office Coverage ("Analysis of W3C Office Coverage in Europe") gave an overview of the Internet presence as well as the presence of W3C in the European Union countries. That paper also outlined the plans for regionalization and for new W3C Offices. The present document reports on the new offices established in 2003.
According to the plans, W3C establishes an office in Spain in 2003. In deviation from the plans, but as already discussed on the review meeting in 2002, no office will be established in Central Europe.
Establishing an Office in Spain has been particularly difficult. The greatest problem we faced was the lack of national level institution, similar to those that host Offices in most of the other European countries. Also, the regional tensions in Spain are well known, and W3C had to be particularly careful to establish a fully neutral representation.
After several discussions and solicitations over the years, we had more detailed discussions with three different institutions:
The contacts with Valencia go back to autumn 2002. The contact persons had long discussions with us over the months and, sometimes in winter, the discussions took an interesting turn. As a possible solution to the Spanish regional problems, UPV tried to set up some sort of a joint "foundation" of several Spanish Universities to host the Office. Although the idea was not necessarily bad, it seems that the administrative problems were more serious than anticipated. As a result, in April 2003, they decided that this direction was unrealistic after all. Because we set a deadline for the submission of a full-blown W3C Office Bid for May 2003, UPV finally gave up and we never received a formal bid. They officially withdrew from the process in early May 2003.
To be more precise: the university has a Telecommunication Engineering School (ETSIT), that includes the Department of Telematics (DIT). Our contact for the W3C Office came from DIT, and goes back to December 2003. The University and the School has a long, in some cases pioneering traditions in Internet and Web related technologies in Spain (they established the first Spanish Internet connection back in 1988, hosted one of the first Web sites in the country, etc). DIT itself also participates in an impressive number of national or international (mainly European) R & D projects. DIT has, clearly, a large network of industry relations, as well as contacts to various ministries, either through former students or staff alumni.
DIT has submitted a formal proposal for a W3C Office in May 2003.
The local authorities of Asturias are busy creating a technology park near Gijon, with strong connections to the University of Oviedo. The main goal is to attract both national and international IT industries; the park already exists and has an impact on industry already. FIYCT is a private, non-for-profit foundation in Asturias (Oviedo), with participation of the local government, universities and the local industry and banks. Their role in the Gijon technology park is to provide a bridge between research and industry and, as such, they play a pivotal role in the regional development. Bringing, possibly, the W3C Office to Asturias is clearly part of the regional, long term development plans, and that explains the very strong support of the local government and of the local industry to the W3C Office initiative. FIYCT is also part of a number of national and international networks, mainly in the academic areas.
The contacts with FICYT go back to spring 2002, when it was decided that Tim Berners-Lee would receive the Prince of Asturias price (in October 2002). The discussions with FICYT led to a formal proposal for a W3C Office in May 2003.
W3C found itself in a difficult situation. Indeed, both proposals were extremely strong, and the choice had to be made between two good contenders.
The plan of FICYT was clearly the more professional of the two. They offered an impressive dissemination plan, had already secured a number of potential W3C members in Spain. FICYT is well prepared in the communication area, way better than a University. Had FICYT and UPM been in the same city (say, Madrid), FICYT would have been the clear winner from the start.
The concern of W3C was the regional one. As said before, FICYT is deeply rooted in the Asturias region; we had to have a clear view on whether they would really act as a Spanish office and not Asturian. These discussions took an extra time, and the decision process within W3C was therefore quite long. After long deliberations, and several rounds of discussions with both parties, W3C finally decided (in mid-July) to give its preferences to FICYT.
The current plans are to make the official announcement of the office, together with a press release and an opening ceremony, in October 2003.
The original Workpackage also envisaged the establishment of a second Office in Central Europe, after the one in Hungary. Unfortunately, and in spite of continuous efforts, this did not happen. There were several reasons:
Here are some of the efforts that has been made in the past:
We certainly do not want to give up fully on this issue, and we hope to establish an office in that region in the future, when the overall economic situation permits and when a good local contact has been found. Unfortunately, it was not possible to do this in the lifetime of the QH project.