editorial

The Alvey Programme was set up in 1983 in the recognition that the task of maintaining the UK as one of the leaders in the information technology (IT) field was too great for the existing research scene. Three things were demanded:

1 A large increase in research in crucial enabling technologies. 2 The encouragement of collaboration in pre-competitive research. 3 The opening of paths to exploitation of the research.

From the beginning the programme was directed by a Board which itself represented the new spirit of collaboration. Four directors were from Government, representing three different Departments, and four were seconded from industry. Research strategies were developed through constant consultation with the IT community, and after four years there were some 200 collaborative projects running, all implementing aspects of the strategy. Collaboration between industry and universities, and also between companies which had always viewed each other with deep suspicion in the past, had been increased dramati- cally. Even more importantly, the Alvey Exhibition at The University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology (UMIST) in July of last year had nearly 100 exhibits showing the results of Alvey research moving into the market place.

Intelligent knowledge-based systems (IKBS) was one of the four main technologies to be addressed by the Alvey Programme. At the start of the programme there was a high quality, but scattered, academic effort, and almost no activity in industry. Now several world class teams, such as that at Edinburgh University, have been greatly strengthened and are also working closely with industry.

Industrial awareness of the topic has been greatly increased by the Expert Systems Community clubs. The clubs have involved a wide range of companies, using an organization with experience to develop applications in their particular fields. These applications have ranged from process control to insurance. The members have been able to participate in the development of systems which demonstrate the relevance of IKBS techniques to their own businesses.

As the programme has developed, the role of knowledge-based systems in all the other enabling technologies has become more apparent. The part to be played by natural language understanding in speech recognition has been established as the limitations of template matching have been encountered. Scene understanding in image processing has meant that the whole topic has straddled the boundary between two technologies.

The generation of intelligent front-ends for databases and the con- junction of declarative styles of programming with more conventional methods has brought software engineering into close contact with the knowledge-based systems world.

It is thus not surprising that, having brought different institutions to the point of active collaboration, the Alvey Programme has now demonstrated that its own delineation of enabling technologies has boundaries which must be overcome. This is reflected in the strategy papers prepared for the next phase, from which the new Information Engineering Directorate will develop its workplan for the new national programme and Esprit.

Laurence Clarke GEC plc

Former Director, Alvey Programme, UK

Vol 1 No 3 June 1988 131