NM2

AUTH is the bigger university in Greece with more than 2200 R&D personnel. The AIIA Lab at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki is an active research group working for more than one decade in multimedia/digital image and video processing and related areas. Its topics of interest span the areas of biometrics, digital human-centred interfaces, indexing and retrieval by content, image/video processing, computer vision and watermarking.

BT is one of Europe’s leading providers of telecommunications services. Its principal activities include local, national and international telecommunications services, higher-value broadband and Internet products and services, and IT solutions. BT Exact, headquartered at Adastral Park (Martlesham Heath) in Suffolk, UK, is home to 3,500 of BT’s top scientists, engineers and business people. The employees include many who are world leaders in their specialist fields, working at the forefront of standards development and new technologies in areas such as multimedia, IP and data networks, mobile communications, network design and management, and business applications. BT Exact provides research, development and consulting services for BT – developing innovative technological ideas and solutions that translate into practical and marketable solutions for the businesses.

JOANNEUM RESEARCH, located in Graz, is a non-profit technology centre, concentrating onto applied R&D with a highly qualified staff of more than 380 people. They implement their know-how in all sectors of technology transfer and innovation. Their service includes specifically geared development tasks for small- and medium-sized companies, complex interdisciplinary national and international research assignments as well as tailored techno-economic consulting. The Institute of Information Systems & Information Management (http://www.joanneum.at/iis) focuses on web based information systems and digital media.

Telefónica I+D is a 100% subsidiary of Telefónica S.A. Telefónica I+D was formed in 1988 in order to contribute to the technological innovation of the parent company, by performing research and development activities. Over the last few years, the line of work of Telefónica I+D has evolved to conform to the objective of becoming a services creation lab. This objective is driven by the emergence of interactive multimedia services, which are increasingly becoming a major force in the telecommunications market. Telefónica I+D is very active in all major telecommunicated-related areas where it can also offer a huge knowledge due to the experience obtained in the numerous projects in which Telefónica I+D has been involved, apart from the services deployed in Telefónica. Telefónica I+D has developed an Innovation Plan, with the objective of anticipating solutions to the challenges that the future information society will raise. All the activities in Telefónica I+D are carried out conforming to an in house methodology, supported with tools, which have been awarded an ISO 9001 Certification in 1994.

TNO is an independent contract research organization, representing a wide variety of scientific disciplines, generating, marketing and applying technological knowledge for clients in the corporate and public sectors. Largest centre of innovation in the Netherlands bringing together expertise on ICT and telecommunications, but also on end-user behaviour, socio-cultural and commercial aspects.

Goldsmiths College is the UK’s leading creative university. The Department of Computing is playing an increasingly large part in the College’s pre-eminence in the study and practice of creative, cognitive, cultural and social processes. The department is central to the development of a new inter-disciplinary research centre within the college – Goldsmiths Digital Studios – devoted to investigations of creative uses of IT and new media, and computational modelling of cognitive and cultural processes. On behalf of Goldsmiths College the Department of Computing is the main participant in NM2. Its research is focused on Artificial Intelligence, including intelligent design, knowledge representation and ontological engineering, applications of AI to visual reasoning and music, and modelling of human behaviour.

ITL is an established, highly regarded creative SME founded in 1982. The company is a leading producer and publisher of distinctive media about the arts, culture and history, and its regular clients and partners include broadcasters in the UK and abroad and leading museums. ITL has pioneered a number of innovative projects integrating network technologies with broadcast. With partners including BT and the University of Nottingham, the company developed the idea of “inhabited television” combining 3D networked virtual worlds with live broadcasting.

Taideteollinen korkeakoulu (University of art and Design Helsinki, UIAH) gives education and pursues research in the fields of design, audio-visual communication, interactive media design and production, art education and arts. UIAH is the largest art and design school in Scandinavia: there are nearly 1600 students, 15% of which come from abroad, and 400 teachers. It has been a partner and coordinator in many national, Nordic and EU-funded projects. The area of interactive narrative production has been one of the central themes within the Media Lab’s education and research agendas since the mid-1990s. The Media Centre Lume facilitates all the major media resources, for example, TV, Theatre and Film studios as well as pre- and post-production facilities of UIAH. Lume has official national status as research and development centre to the Finnish media sector.

The School of Arts and Communication, Malmö University, is a fairly new school, created only in 1998. It currently has four full professors, in Media and Communication Studies, Interaction Design, Informatics and Art and Technology. The research environment includes researchers from the social sciences, the humanities, from technology and from art disciplines. K3 coordinates the EU project Atelier (Architecture and Technology for inspirational Learning) and is also involved in the EU program Interact. Of particular interest for NM2 is the research program News media in the year 2003 (1998-2002), a program that dealt with creating and disseminating knowledge on ways to maintain and improve the quality of news production in digital media, with results practically applicable for Swedish news producers as well as of general scientific interest.