Horst Forster

Horst Forster is currently Director "Content" at the European Commission's Directorate General for Information Society and Media. He started his career in the European Commission in 1984 as Head of Unit for IT Strategy. He subsequently held various management positions.

Before joining the European Commission, Horst Forster worked in the Federal Ministry for Research and Education in Bonn, and in the computer industry. He holds a degree in physics from Darmstadt Technical University.

Synopsis

European Research: Results and Directions

Over the past years the Commission has provided substantial support for novel Web technologies and applications under its research programmes. They sponsored multinational research into the Semantic Web, and promoted the convergence of Web, multimedia and knowledge representation/reasoning technologies.

Horst Forster will give a broad overview of where we stand today and outline research directions and funding opportunities within the upcoming 7th framework programme. The other speakers will each present their views on the main S&T challenges ahead, and on their expectations for a timely and effective uptake of research results.