In this subheading you may add any information or remarks but also comment on the following assessment criteria as outlined in Annex B.

• To what extent does the proposed network aim at involving early-stage researchers?

• To what extent does the proposed network aim at being gender balanced?

• Does the number of countries the Applicants come from reflect a wide European dimension?

• To what extent have provisions been made for monitoring and evaluating the achievement of objectives?

• To what extent have provisions been made for assessing potential application, and fostering exploitation, of results?

As explained in Section I.E, the list of participants of this Action includes many early-stage researchers, and they will have the opportunity to engage fully with all aspects of the Action. This includes: membership of Working Groups; participation in Short-Term Scientific Missions; participation in Training Schools as attendees and, where appropriate, lecturers; presentation of research results at the annual workshops; involvement in preparing the annual reports of the Working Groups.

As explained in Section I.E, the gender balance among the participants in this Action is better than that typically found in a university computer science department. The Management Committee and Working Groups will constantly strive to ensure a good gender balance in all activities of the Action.

The list of participants includes experts from 11 countries, including several of the newer member states of the EU. This means that already a significant proportion of the COST countries are included in the Action. The Management Committee and the Working Group co-ordinators will actively seek to identify interested researchers in other COST (and, if appropriate, non-COST) countries and encourage them to join the Action.

Section I.C includes a detailed list of objectives, including, where appropriate, quantitative targets for the level of activity. Progress towards the objectives, and measurement of outputs and activities against targets, will be monitored continuously by the Working Group co-ordinators and formally checked by the Management Committee at its annual meetings.

Section I.E includes a series of milestones, explicitly stating what the Management Committee expects to receive each year from the Working Groups and as a result of the workshops and Training Schools.

The interaction between the Working Groups, set out in Section II.C, is designed to ensure a flow of results towards their areas of application. For example, theoretical research carried out within WG1 (Foundations) will be planned to address points identified by WG2 (Security) and WG3 (Languages). Similarly, programming language design work carried out within WG3 (Languages) will be aimed at providing desirable language features and constructs identified by WG2 (Security) and WG4 (Tools & Applications).

The ultimate application of the results of this Action will be to industrial software development methods and processes. This application will be ensured by the involvement in the Action of several representatives of software companies (see below). During the Action, the Management Committee and the Working Group co-ordinators will actively look for additional software companies who might be interested in participating.

The following companies have agreed to participate in the Action. Their representatives are included in the list of experts.

Cognizant Technology Solutions Ltd. (UK)

Exformatics A/S (Denmark)

Etica s.r.l. (Italy)

Fredhopper (Netherlands)

Maps S.p.A. (Italy)

Red Hat, Inc. (UK)

Simon: Please precede remarks with your name.