COMMISSION LAUNCHES OPEN CALL FOR STUDIES RELATING TO IST PROGRAMME.

The European Commission's Information Society Directorate-General has announced an open call for tenders for studies related to its Information Society Technologies (IST) research programme, part of the Commission's Fifth RTD Framework programme. "The quality of IST related developments in the European Union depend largely on the relevant industry involved in this area and its graduate personnel", says the Information Society DG. "Therefore simulation of initiatives supporting improvement of these human resources is a key to keeping the process of progress going. This can be achieved in particular through an optimised and interrelated use of existing non-public training infrastructures".To promote such initiatives, the Commission now requires information about in-house training activities of the above mentioned IST-sector industries. The objective to the study is to identify existing training infrastructures being run by companies belonging to the EU IT sector and to provide detailed data about their training practices, on the needs they strive to satisfy, on their results and on the scalability of their actions. The overall study aims to identify training schemes and/or infrastructures being run by IT companies, and to provide training at graduate and/or post-graduate level.The study is therefore required to:- establish an inventory of such companies, identify the objectives of susuch schemes and the specific skills developed;- make...