COMIST
From AMI@Work Communities Wiki
| Roberto Santoro Project Coordinator (email) ESoCE-NET, Rome, Italy |
| Marc Pallot Network & Communication (email) ESoCE-NET, Paris, France |
- COMIST Workspace
(for project members only)
The COMIST project aims to increase the participation of NMAS organisations in IST activities according to a systemic innovation approach. COMIST supports and implements a general collaboration and interaction environment through the instrument of virtual or networked communities already experimented with success within the AMI@Work Communities initiative launched in June 2004 by the European Commission with the support of the MOSAIC and SEEMseed projects. More than 600 participants from over 20 European countries have already registered to this initiative since the preparatory workshop in March 2004.
The general COMIST project focus is on strengthening the NMAS innovation system in the area of New Work and Business Environments and building strong integrative networking relations with IST. The working method of the COMIST project is explicitly inspired to that experimented by the MOSAIC project in the constitution, launch and operation of the AMI@Work family of communities. These communities act as breeding grounds for innovation in bringing together the relevant organisations and stakeholders for the purpose of starting up "innovation cycles". COMIST primary focus is on NMAS SMEs in the manufacturing, agro-food and logistics sectors.
Community involvement method to increase the participation of NMAS organisations in IST activities implies the completion of four main activities:
- Aligning the role of NMAS organisations in Innovation Networks with a focus on systemic innovation as innovation requires not just technological innovation but organisational, structural and policy innovation as well.
- Building a Network of Communities acting as "breeding ground" for innovation and collaboration, and offering easy and effective collaboration tools supporting discussions and exchanges of viewpoints and knowledge, and to build consensus concerning innovation strategies and possible directions for collaboration.
- Organising events and communication channels for promoting the involvement of NMAS organisations into innovation initiatives to reach the widest audience and bring together all stakeholders from the enlarged EU.
- Establishing a consortium-building infrastructure to provide the widest population of interested organisations, members or not, with a suitable infrastructure to match collaboration demand and offer, based on collected competencies and availability.
The result of COMIST will accelerate the increased participation, and result into more effective involvement and collaboration of NMAS organisations in IST research and innovation activities. A faster and wider collaboration among NMAS organisations and other Member States organisations will increase creativity potential and innovation capacity as well as business opportunities in the enlarged EU to all stakeholders. Specifically, COMIST in facilitating access to EU research communities, appropriate partners and opportunities of participation to research projects for NMAS organisations, especially for SMEs, will greatly accelerate innovation and emergence of new businesses in the enlarged EU.
COMIST has brought together a core team with strong track record in community building, mobile working and networked businesses RTD for both New Member States-Associated Candidate Countries (NMAS) and other Member States. Partners have coordinated and are participating to a series of roadmap projects and network activities under FP5 and FP6, like COCONET, Future Workspaces, ROADCON, CE-NET, VOSTER, VE-FORUM, SEEMseed and MOSAIC.
Additionally, this approach is supported by all AMI@Work communities elected chair and vice-chair acting as Associated Members to contribute as facilitators to the various communities activities. The strength of the consortium lies also in partners' ability to link up with and bring together important players and communities from a number of FP5 and FP6 projects, roadmap projects, thematic networks and networks of excellence, and to link with national initiatives for collaboration.
