The purpose of this section is to give the historical background of the proposal: how the idea of the COST Action was born and how the subsequent definition of the objectives and the pre-proposal planning was carried out.

For several years, there had been increasing activity on the topic of behavioural types in distributed and service-oriented systems. There were several research groups as well as a number of more isolated researchers. Some links had developed between particular groups, but there was not a strong sense of an overall community. A workshop was held in April 2011, which was very effective in bringing researchers together and in identifying new researchers in the field as invitations spread via individual contacts. At the end of the workshop there was a general desire to consolidate the community and develop a more coordinated approach towards further research on this topic. This led to two initiatives: (1) a proposal for a special issue of a journal, to focus on behavioural type systems; (2) the decision to apply for a COST Action.

The special journal issue is going ahead and at the time of writing, submissions are being reviewed. The call for papers was distributed widely and resulted in submissions from authors who had not previously been in contact with any participants of the workshop. Several of these authors are now potential participants in the proposed Action. The preliminary proposal was developed during the summer, by a collaborative process in which a small writing group produced drafts which were commented on by many members of the community. The development of the full proposal has followed a similar process but with more people involved in writing; again, drafts were reviewed by other potential participants in the Action.

The objectives of the Action were decided by a collaborative discussion, from which emerged a shared understanding of the most important challenges facing the field of the design, development and management of distributed service-oriented systems and, in that context, the most effective ways in which behavioural types can be applied.

Simon: Please precede remarks with your name.

Simon: A short summary of our history.

Kohei: How long should this be? The current summary is good, I may elaborate a bit but if the length is fine I do not find the need to change.

Simon: I think the length is OK. I can't think of anything to add.