Welcome to the THESEUS-programme
Michael Glos, Economics Minister ret., explains: “The Federal Government regards new, internet-based methods of acquiring, seeking and processing knowledge as a strategically vital issue in the context of globalised competition. With the help of THESEUS, we aim to improve the competitive position of Germany and of Europe as a whole, with a view to ultimately becoming one of the world’s leading locations for information and communication technology. Opening up new markets with a high growth potential will also create sustainable jobs and economic prosperity in Germany and throughout Europe.
THESEUS is also intended to provide a bridge between pure research and practical application from the outset. We expect the selected fields to provide innovative Best Practice examples and potentially successful business models. Unlike in the past, we now want to ensure that Germany is not just a location where innovations are developed, but where they are also put into practice – with a corresponding boost for growth, and for the creation and safeguarding of jobs”.
According to Prof. Dr.-Ing. Hans-Jörg Bullinger, President of the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft, "it is impossible to make sensible use of the rapidly increasing quantity of information from all areas without the help of technical knowledge management systems. THESEUS responds to this fundamental challenge set by the knowledge society: it is developing innovative tools and solutions for collecting, processing and linking the knowledge that is already available, as well as for acquiring new knowledge. This large and ambitious research project will allow us and our partners from the world of industry to give a strong boost to IT and communications research in Germany".
Prof. Dr. Henning Kagermann, former CEO at SAP, states that "THESEUS provides an important basis for the next internet generation, namely the service internet. The general public and clients now have expectations and requirements that demand business model solutions that rely on knowledge-based and IT-based services. So the research programme provides an ideal opportunity to secure a competitive advantage for IT and communication technology in Europe, and particularly Germany".
Dr. Hartmut Raffler, Vice President Corporate Technology at Siemens, says that "THESEUS allows all internet users easy access to global knowledge. The semantic technologies being developed in the course of the THESEUS project will make it possible to generate new knowledge from knowledge that is already available, and so THESEUS represents a vital contribution to the creation of the knowledge society of tomorrow".
According to Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Wahlster, Head of the DFKI (German Research Centre for Artificial Intelligence), “THESEUS is a combination of the IT trends “Semantic Web” and “Web 2.0” which, in the form of Web 3.0, will provide an innovative, groundbreaking knowledge infrastructure that will allow entirely new forms of knowledge access, knowledge management and web-based services, applications and business models”.
Images: BMWi, arvato AG, Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft, SAP, Siemens, DFKI