Ericsson is a world-leading provider of telecommunications equipment and services to mobile and fixed network operators. Over 1,000 networks in more than 180 countries use their network equipment, and more than 40 per cent of the world’s mobile traffic passes through Ericsson networks. Ericsson offer end-to-end solutions for all major mobile communication standards and the networks, telecom services and multimedia solutions make it easier for people, across the world, to communicate. Ericsson is playing a key role using innovation to empower people, business and society, working towards the Networked Society, in which everything that can benefit from a connection will have one. Ericsson is the 5th largest software company in the world as well as the largest provider for managed services, managing a large number of telecommunication networks for operators world-wide.

Ericsson’s Network Management Lab (NM Labs) in Ireland carries out applied research, developing new and innovative strategic solutions and technologies for service and telecommunication management in existing and emerging networks. Current areas of research are: Predictive Analytics; Service Assurance; and Big Data Visualisation utilising Machine Learning, Data & Stream Mining, Complex Event Processing, Recommender Systems and Advanced Visualisation and Cloud technologies. The NM Labs work directly influences strategic product decisions and product roadmaps for Ericsson’s OSS product family, namely the lead product Ericsson Network Manager (ENM). The NM Labs have strong collaboration with other parts of the world-wide Ericsson organisation, including customer units, product lines and the group function technology.

i2CAT is a non-profit technology centre which promotes R+D+i activities in the field of Information and Communication Technologies and Future Internet. The centre invests in a new model of innovation based on collaboration among private companies, public administration, the academic world and end-users, through an open innovation environment that is characteristic of the Internet culture. The strategic goals of i2CAT are: i) to integrate research and innovation; ii) to foster co-creation in a quadruple helix model (university, company, public administration and users); iii) to develop activities within an international and local framework; iv) to provide networking and multimedia infrastructures and advanced experimental platforms.

The Distributed Applications and Networks Area aims to research, develop and innovate on new network technologies to offer to the ICT sector new tools and technologies to promote the adoption of new business models and the development of local business initiatives. DANA is structured in three research lines, looking at different areas of the networking space: Future Internet Testbeds (FIT), Infrastructure Control and Management (ICM) and the Recursive InterNetwork Architecture (RINA). The Professional Services (PS) division leverages the knowledge, expertise and proofs of concepts generated by the research lines to impact the local and global industry.

Nextworks s.r.l., located in Pisa, Italy, is a dynamic R&D SME that was created in 2002 as a spin-off company of the Computer Science and Telecommunications Division of the Consorzio Pisa Ricerche (CPR–DITEL). Nextworks was created by a group of engineers and computer scientists who gained high experience in National and International research projects and industrial consultancies since 1995.

Nextworks operates in the TLC sectors, collaborating with some of the major European manufacturers and operators. The company’s team boasts long-term experience and proved skills in the frameworks of Control Plane technologies for wired and wireless transport networks, design and development of complex software on both traditional and embedded platforms and in Quality of Service (QoS) in packet networks, IP telephony, digital video encoding and streaming. The consulting activities carried out by Nextworks range from pure support consulting on one end, up to long-term, third-party software design & developments for equipment vendors on the other end (e.g. Alcatel-Lucent and Ericsson). The specific nature and technical position of these activities require a leading-edge, up-to-date know-how and technical expertise. In order to fulfil this requirement, Nextworks participates actively in EU-funded research projects, cooperating with both academic and industrial partners, as an important and preferential investment to develop and update know-how on selected topics.

Telefonica I+D (TID) is the innovation company of the Telefonica Group. Founded in 1988, it contributes to the Group’s competitiveness and modernity through technological innovation. To achieve this aim the company applies new ideas, concepts and practices in addition to developing advanced products and services. It is the largest private R&D centre in Spain as regards activity and resources, and is the most active company in Europe in terms of European research projects in the ICT sector. Over the last few years, within the global market Telefonica I+D has grown to become a network of centres of technological excellence that stretches far beyond the Spanish borders. At the same time, it is working for the companies in the Telefonica Group in the rest of Europe, America and Asia. In addition to the numerous technical awards it has won since its foundation, the company received the Principe Felipe Award for Business Excellence in 2002.

TID staff has a long experience in new network architectures and is involved in several internal initiatives and collaboration projects related to them. The team also has a long experience in participating and contributing to standards organisations, reflected by the instrumental position played in the creation and the leadership in the ETSI NFV ISG. Finally, TID’s direct connection with a global organisation providing Internet services at all levels eases the collection of knowledge from additional experts, as well as the assessment and evaluation of results in (next-to) real environments.

iMinds (new name of IBBT as of October 8 2012) is an independent research institute founded by the Flemish government to stimulate ICT innovation. The mission of iMinds is the creation of highly competent human capital in different aspects of ICT through multi-disciplinary demand-driven research. iMinds carries out this multi-disciplinary research for the Flemish business community and the Flemish government. This includes all technological, legal and social dimensions of the development and exploitation of broadband services. One of iMinds’ departments is the Internet Technologies Department, of which IBCN is 1 of 4 research groups. The Internet Based Communication Networks and Services research group (www.ibcn.intec.ugent.be) is performing fundamental and applied research on internet based communication networks and services, more specifically with the focus on: (1) Network Modelling, Design and Evaluation, (2) Mobile & Wireless Networking, (3) High Performance Multimedia Processing, (4) Autonomic Computing & Networking, (5) Service Engineering, (6) Content and Search Management, and (7) Data Analysis and Machine Learning. This research is applied to a number of application domains: health and care, transport and logistics, media, energy, manufacturing and computational biology. A well-established experimental test environment and a number of technology platforms support these activities. An enthusiastic team of about 135 people comprising 12 professors, 30 post-docs, 90 researchers and 5 support persons, performs the research.

The IBCN group also belongs to the Department of Information Technology (INTEC) of Ghent University (UGent). At a national level the group is collaborating with about 100 industrial partners in many multidisciplinary projects. Also internationally there is strong involvement in European research projects, especially in the Future Internet area, with about 70 finished and running EU projects over the past 10 years. Since the start of the IBCN group in 1992, research resulted in 1600 publications in international journals and conference proceedings, 80 PhD’s, 45 international awards, and 6 spin-off companies. The academic staff has a strong involvement in informatics, software engineering and networking courses at the Faculty of Engineering and Architecture of UGent.

Boston University — independent, coeducational, and non-sectarian—is an internationally recognized private institution of higher education and research. It is the third-largest independent institution of higher education in the United States. Through its fifteen Schools and Colleges, thirteen of which offer advanced degrees, the University serves the academic and research needs of nearly 30,000 students and over 2,800 faculty. Government and Industrial funding of research conducted at Boston University has exceeded $250M in FY’05. Boston University’s student body represents all fifty states and more than 135 foreign countries.

The Computer Science (CS) Department at Boston University was established in 1983 as part of the College (and Graduate School) of Arts and Sciences. Today, it consists of 19 full-time faculty members (in addition to 10 joint and affiliated faculty members) who teach and conduct research in diverse areas of theoretical, experimental and applied computer science. The Department’s student body consists of over 200 undergraduate students and over 80 graduate students, of which over 50 students (all supported) are pursuing PhD degrees. Over the last decade, the Computer Science Department at Boston University has had significant growth in areas of networking, databases, computer vision, security and applied cryptography, operating systems and real-time systems.