Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

We thank all members for their very active participation in the platform’s activities in the past year. Even more than in previous years, your commitment and determined contributions to the numerous strategy, policy and thematic documents produced by EPoSS in 2011 have been not only beneficial, but decisive for the present success of EPoSS.

In 2011, EPoSS has provided widely recognized input to policy processes, such as the EPoSS input to the Commission’s Green Paper Consultation on the future Common Strategic Framework for Research and Innovation or the EPoSS Concept Paper “Smart Systems - Providing Solutions for the Grand Challenges of European Society: A Public Private Partnership Approach on Smart Systems”.

The members of EPoSS and in particular the EPoSS Steering Group chaired by Günter Lugert of Siemens has put substantial effort into the discussion on the future structure and priority areas of EPoSS, taking into account future key priorities of EPoSS, lessons learnt from the past years, as well as a focus on the decisive role of SMEs in EU research and innovation. Some of the results of this discussion have already been implemented, such as

• The name change of the former EPoSS Medical Technologies WG into “Smart Systems for Healthy Living”,
•  The setting up of a new EPoSS Expert Working Group on “Applied Micro-Nano-Bio Systems”,
• The initiation of a strategy, community building, roadmapping and priority setting process for the use of Smart Systems in manufacturing industries, including the discuss on setting up a new EPoSS Working Group “Manufacturing & Robotics”,
• The intensified cooperation between the application oriented Working Groups and the horizontal Key Technologies Working Group, which is important in order to pave the way from research to innovation,
• The integration of safety & security as transversal topics in all EPoSS Working Groups,
  
• And last but not least the implementation of a very practical mechanism to promote SMEs, namely through a special reduced membership fee for associations of SMEs.
  

In 2011, EPoSS has again enlarged its membership base compared to the previous year. EPoSS organized and contributed to a number of very successful events, among others the SSI 2011 in Dresden, the MNBS 2011 in Mondargon, the AMAA 2011 in Berlin, the Green Cars Strategy Event in Berlin, and the EPoSS General Assembly, Annual Forum & EPoSS Proposers’ Day 2011 in Barcelona. With 195 participants, this latter event was the biggest since the launch of the platform.

It is also important to note that in ICT Call 7, EPoSS members were even more successful than in the previous call. EPoSS members are partners in all 11 retained proposals, 7 of which are coordinated by EPoSS members. In the Coordination Action "IRISS - Implementation of Research and Innovation on Smart Systems Technologies", all 16 contractual partners are members of EPoSS.

With respect to the upcoming Horizon 2020, prospects are very good for EPoSS members, because of the numerous funding opportunities for Smart Systems Integration, in particular in the "Competitive Industries", "Better Society" and "Excellent Science" pillars of the programme. Smart Systems Integration cuts across several of the Horizon 2020 challenges and the enabling and industrial technologies, and will also be supported through the Future and Emerging Technologies objective. In addition, many of the novelties of Horizon 2020 are in line with the EPoSS input to the Green Paper Consultation.

The coming year will therefore no doubt again be very exciting for EPoSS and the Smart Systems community. We are looking forward to the SMART SYSTEMS INTEGRATION 2012 in March, which is part of the activities of EPoSS and where EPoSS is organizing two special sessions, the AMAA 2011 in May and in particular to the next EPoSS Annual Forum that will take place in Paris, 26-28 September 2012. We hope to meet many of you at those events.

Wolfgang Gessner
Petra Weiler, Annette Schostak, Sheila Borrega, Beate Müller, and Laure Quintin
Thomas Köhler, Gereon Meyer Sebastian Lange, and Nicolas Gouze