Below are several prospective documents from INRIA or elsewhere that try
to shed some light on the evolution of the scientific fields in which
the Institute is working.
Parallelism and Architecture
• In March 1998, an NSF report entitled Billion-Transistor
Systems tried to imagine all the research problems that such an
evolution entails. The reports complement, for the long term, the National Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors
report, which clearly shows that Moore's law is not a natural law but
a goal of the semiconductor industry.
• A March 1999 NSF report called An Advanced Research Infrastructure
Supporting the Computational Science Community developed the idea
of the transparency of the location of large computational resources.
Although this is an old idea, it obviously seems to be more realistic
today than 25 years ago, due to the ubiquity of the Internet and the
advances in fiber optics transmission.
Building reliable software
A US government report "High
confidence software and systems research needs", January 2001, analyzes
the research needs for augmenting confidence in software systems. It
insists in particular that fundamental understanding is needed, a point
of view that is not widely followed in the United States.
Databases, Knowledge Bases, Cognitive Systems
• The Asilomar
Report on Database Research, September 1998, written by sixteen
researchers in the field, ponders the impact of fundamental changes
in the technological environment-development of the Web, very integrated
management application environments, and profound changes in computer
equipment-on database research.
An original element of this report is a proposed change in research
evaluation procedures and conference organization so that research will
get more middle and long term oriented rather than focusing on incremental
detail improvements.
• INRIA Report, March 1998.
Vision, Image Processing and Computer Images
• Automatic
Analysis of Medical Images: state of the art and prospects, May
1998, by N. Ayache
(to appear in Annales de l'Institut Pasteur)
Modeling and Scientific Computing
• The report entitled High-End
Climate Science: development of modeling and related computing capabilities
discusses the inadequacy of the computing resources made available to
researchers in Climate Science in the United States. The report originates
with USGCRP, the United States Global Change Research Program, December
2000.
• Modeling in Ground Transportations,
a report of the National Program on Research and Innovation in Ground
Transportation (Predit), June 1999. This report examines a certain number
of fields in connection with transportation in which modling and simulation
are playing an increasing role. The report also issues recommandations
for Predit to better take this evolution into account.
• Report by Olivier Pironneau,
Professor at the Pierre et Marie Curie University, futurology advisor
at INRIA, June 1998.
Information technology and life sciences
Report dated
June 1999 to the President of NIH regarding the need for research
and development in information technology in the biomedical community.
One notes that NIH needs to develop these areas of research to fulfill
its mandate.
INRIA's Strategic Plan
- INRIA's 1999-2003 Strategic Plan.
- The major goals of the Strategic
Plan.
General Documents
• An interim report to the President of
the United States by the "President's Information Technology Advisory
Committee" concludes:
(1) that Federal government support to research in information technology,
in particular basic research, is insufficient in view of the importance
of this field for the country;
(2) that the existing support focuses too much on short term goals due
to its dispersion in various agencies with finalized purposes.
After a 16% growth in 1998, the NSF budget could grow considerably again
next year since the American government seems to be willing to implement
the report's conclusions.
• The NSF report "Science and Engineering
Indicators - 1998" analyses science and engineering in the
United States and presents comparisons with the situation in other countries.
This year, a new chapter called "The economic and social importance
of information technology" was added.
•In April 1998, the American Department of Commerce published
a report calledé The Emerging Digital Economy
that discusses the impact of information technology in terms of employment
and economic growth. The report supplies a certain number of examples
and data concerning electronic commerce. In June 1999, the American
Department of Commerce published a new version of the report, The Emerging
Digital Economy II, stating that electronic commerce is developing more
vigorously than expected, even though it remains a minor sector. On
the other hand, the report also states that information technology has
played a major role in the growth of the American economy and in the
limitation of the inflation.
For further information on this subject or to inform us on recent events,
please contact:
Jacqueline Pari, Assistant to the Scientific
Director Deputy
Tel.: +33 1 39 63 54 04- email: Jacqueline.Pari@inria.fr
