Network of Excellence in Wireless Communications

NEWCOM++ is the acronym of a Network of Excellence in Wireless COMmunications, funded by Call 1 of the VII Framework Program (FP7) under the Objective ICT-2007.1.1: The Network of the Future, mainly in its target direction “Ubiquitous network infrastructure and architectures”.

The fundamental premise behind NEWCOM++ can be summarized as follows:

1. Despite of the fact that the European space already includes very strong research groups in many of the scientific areas commonly and collectively described as wireless communications, the landscape does suffer from symptoms of thematic fragmentation, lack of coordination on a large scale, under-funding and lack of a critical mass in certain vital areas, symptoms wich may prevent Europe from being the envisioned and desired leader at the international scene;
2. The research challenges posed by the target outcome “Ubiquitous network infrastructure and architectures” are by their very nature very complex and interdisciplinary, thus requiring a fully committed and large-scale collaboration between strong research groups in different disciplines, a collection that can hardly be found at a single institution/country;
3. The NEWCOM NoE, funded in FP6 and ended on February 28, 2007, has successfully put in motion an effective integration mechanism between these spatially scattered research entities, thus enabling a process which, however, could not be fully materialized in the three years of its operation (as opposed to the original 5-year plan).

Therefore, the main manner by which NEWCOM++ intends to promote solutions to the abovementioned problems and challenges is by creating a trans-European virtual research centre linking a proper number of leading European research groups in a highly integrated, carefully harmonized, cooperative fashion. This new collection of groups will focus on a carefully tailored joint program of activities including integration, joint research and spreading of excellence.

The core concept of NEWCOM++ is thus the following: an NoE of medium size, greatly reduced from the initial NEWCOM Consortium, formed by keeping the most committed and performing partners, exploiting the successful integration tools that NEWCOM designed and activated, and which is created for the purpose of scientifically addressing medium/long term, complex, interdisciplinary, fundamental research problems in the field of wireless networks, focused towards identifying, posing in the right modelling perspective, and at least partially characterizing the information-communication theoretical limits of such networks and the algorithmic solutions that make it possible to approach those limits.