Aims

The key enabling technologies developed within the digital ecosystem research aim at providingto provide an European Technological Platform that supports the spontaneous composition, distribution, evolution and adaptation of ICT-based services. This platform should allow European SME software industry to develop cooperatively - and to launch on the network - services and software components, which that are composed together to form complex solutions.
Digital business ecosystems support::
  • The software and ICT-based services producers.
By providing co-operative software development mechanisms for enterprises which are too small to produce alone a complete complex solution, digital ecosystems contribute to preserve the strategic European software industry, and to avoid domination of non-European monopolies and loss of knowledge and human capital.
  • The ICT users.
By activating the continuous creation and evolution of a richness of affordable ICT-based services, digital ecosystems make available a diversity of services adapted to local needs, and lowering the barriers of ICT adoption for SMEs,
/ / The digital ecosystem aims at beingto become the ICT-enabling technology supporting the emergence and the sustainability of knowledge-based networked business ecosystems: geographical (or virtual) areas where specific policy initiatives would foster growth, and improve innovation, productivity and social inclusion, through the optimal use of local assets empowered by ICT.
The support to theof knowledge sharing, to of the establishment of worldwide value chains and to of transitory business networking promotes global cooperation and alternative ways of developing software and conducting business.
A network of digital ecosystems, as public common resource, would offers to SMEs and to less developed or remote areas opportunities of participation in the global economy, contributing to overcome the digital divides.

The challenge of the deployment of sustainable local digital ecosystems is met through public-private partnerships and exploitation of synergies among several financial instruments and initiatives. EU funded research is complemented by ERA national and regional initiatives together with local policies, activating a virtuous cycle based on research -> innovation –> deployment –> adoption –> growth –> policy -> research.
Five first EU-pilot areas (Tampere, Piedmont, West -Midlands, Aragon, Piedmont, Extremadura) have already joined the DBE project initiative. Areas in developing countries are activating strategic alliances and will join. / /

Research and Innovation Challenges

The transposition of behaviours and architectures from natural to digital and to economic systems requires the focusing and integration of R&D from several disciplines, ranging from fundamental science to computer science and to social science. Research should develop the basic theories and technologies needed for structuring and for the bottom-up spontaneous deployment and evolution of digital ecosystems.
Some non-exhaustive examples are:
In fundamental science
- Models and Complex system theory, simulation and optimisation, fitness landscape mechanisms: how to transpose from living organisms mechanisms like adaptation, selection, evolution, autonomy, viability; how to develop concepts and operative operational models for the social self-organisations of the digital components.
- Formal languages and models: how to express the genetic structure of the digital components (digital genotype); how to express theinclude environmental influence on in the expression of the digital -genotype into instantiated software components (digital phenotype); how to make computable semi-formal knowledge computable, like such as revenue model languages, business needs, contracts and legal constraints.
In network architectures
- Network architecture: how to leverage P2P technologies to enable a spontaneous evolution of a non-centric, fault- tolerant, secure and self- healing pervasive architecture; how to realisze Internet-enabled shared and distributed semantics.
- Interoperability and system orchestration: how to dynamically integrate highly decoupled service components; how to allow services to interoperate without prior co-ordination and adaptation.
- Business model languages: how to create platform- independent protocols and languages expressing Computational Platform-Independent Models taking into account ontologyies mapping.
- Knowledge sharing and management: how to realisze a non-centric pervasive fault- tolerant knowledge sharing with introspection capabilities.
In socio-economic and organisational models
- Business model and license interoperability: how to compose components with different license and revenue models.
- Policy and growth models: how to identify sustainable growth models and business ecosystem co-operation at wide geographical levels.
- Constituency building: how to promote self-organising cross-cultural dynamic communities; how to spin-off viable and self-sustaining local digital ecosystems.

Objective

To foster local economic growth through new forms of dynamic business interactions and global co-operation among organiszations and business communities enabled by digital ecosystem technologies.

Definitions

A natural life ecosystem is defined as a biological community of interacting organisms plus their physical environment. In the same way, a business ecosystem is "the network of buyers, suppliers and makers of related products or services” plus the socio-economic environment, including the institutional and regulatory framework.
The digital ecosystem approach transposes the concept to the digital world, exploiting the mechanisms of natural ecosystems.
A digital ecosystem is an "evolutionary self-organising system aimed at creating a software environment for networked organisations" that supports the development of open and adaptive technologies and evolutionary business models.
The digital ecosystem
means aims to become the ICT-enabling technology for the business ecosystem
Research
The research identifies and develops the technologies and the scientific and economic models leading to distributed and co-operative bottom-up development and deployment of a pervasive network of digital ecosystems populated by a diversity of ICT-based services, components, knowledge, practices and business models adapted to local conditions. / /

Projects in the cluster

Projects in the cluster will contribute, in a concerted way and building on their specific competences, to advancing knowledge and technology development in the field of digital business ecosystems, and to raising awareness and disseminating knowledge across Europe.
[IP] DBE – Digital Business Ecosystems
website:
workspace:
[IP] ECOLEAD – European Collaborative Networked Organisations Leadership Initiative

[STREP] SATINE – Semantic-based interoperability infrastructure for integrating web-service platforms to peer-to-peer networks
http://www.srdc.metu.edu.tr/webpage/projects/satine/
[CA] LEGAL-IST – Legal issues for the advancement of information society technologies

Head of Sector:
For information: / / Technologies for Digital Ecosystems
Supporting
Regional Growth
and Innovation of
Business Ecosystems