ECVision
European Research Network for
Cognitive AI-enabled Computer Vision Systems
Overview of Organizational Matters
Kick-Off
Meeting
Novotel Arenas
Nice Airport
Friday 22nd
March 2002
Table of Contents
1.
Goals,
Organization, Administration, and Coordination
1.1
ECVision
goals and activities
1.2
Organization,
Administration, and Coordination
1.2.1
Executive
Committee
1.2.2
Advisory
Panel
1.2.3
European
Commission Officer
2.
The ECVision
Contract, Membership Agreement, and Budget
2.1
Contract
2.2
Membership
Agreement
2.3
Budget
3.
Guidelines
for Claims for Travel, Computing, and Other Costs
3.1
Travel Costs
3.2
Computing
Costs
3.3
Other
Specific Costs
4.
Cost
Statements
5.
Procedure
for Application for Membership
5.1
Eligibility
for Membership
5.2
Members and
the Membership Agreement
5.3
Application
for Membership
6.
Membership
Status and Procedures for Review of Status
6.1
Types of
Membership
6.2
Review of
Membership Status
7.
Specific
Actions: Application for Funding
8. Measurement
of Success
9. Deliverables
due by Month Six
The goal of ECVision is to provide a pro-active
forum to expose the following AI- and systems-oriented areas of computer
vision:
·
Knowledge
representation
·
Learning
·
Reasoning
about events and about structures
·
Recognition
and categorization
·
Goal
specification & achievement
and to promote research and development amongst the academic and the industrial communities.
ECVision has four major target areas of
activity:
Each
target area is co-ordinated by two area leaders.
The
majority of the work of the network will be accomplished though a combination
of:
·
Pro
bono contributions
by members
·
Sponsored
(funded) specific actions
Approximately
four specific actions are envisaged per area per year, with a notional budget
of €6000 per action.
1.2 Organization,
Administration, and Coordination
Three
principal bodies are involved in the running of the network:
1.
The
Executive Committee
2.
The
Advisory Panel
3.
The
European Commission Officer
1.2.1 The Executive Committee
The Executive
Committee comprises the network coordinator and the area leaders. Its responsibilities include the following:
Network Coordinator
·
Chair
the Executive Committee
·
Collate
and prepare of six-monthly management reports
·
Organize
six-monthly Executive Committee meetings
·
Organize
six-monthly network workshops
·
Process
and reimburse members costs
·
Prepare
consolidated cost statements (based on cost statements from members)
·
Process
applications for funding by sponsored members
·
Collate
and process reviews of member status
·
Collect
and distribute deliverables
·
Assess
target area progress and implement corrective action
·
Prepare
summaries of performance of members & forward to the Commission Officer for
assessment regarding membership status
·
Monitor
the budget
Area Leaders
·
Motivate
and coordinate the work in each area.
·
Evaluate
membership applications
·
Evaluate
the progress of the network and implement corrective actions in the event of
problems
·
Review
funding applications by Sponsored Members and approve sponsored activities
(note: the European Commission gives final approval on all sponsored
activities)
·
Submit
six-monthly status reports
The
Executive Committee is comprised as follows:
Ø
Network Coordinator David
Vernon, CAPTEC
Ø
Research Planning Henrik
Christensen, Royal
Institute of Technology
James Crowley, Institut National
Polytechnique de Grenoble
Ø
Education
and Training Wolfgang
Förstner, University of Bonn
Bob Fisher, University of
Edinburgh
Ø
Information
Dissemination Hilary
Buxton, University of Sussex
David Vernon, CAPTEC
Ø
Industrial Liaison Monique Thonnat, INRIA Sophia
Antipolis
Patrick Courtney, PBConsulting Ltd.
1.2.2 The Advisory Panel
The
Advisory Panel has the following roles:
·
Offer
guidance and strategic advice as and when required
·
Review
six-monthly progress reports and comment on the nature and direction of the
network’s progress
It is comprised as follows:
Ø Mike Brady,
University of Oxford
Ø Hans-Hellmut Nagel,
University of Karlsruhe
Ø Giulio Sandini, University
of Genoa – DIST
1.2.3 The European Commission
The European
Commission Officer
·
Final
decision on changes in membership status (ordinary vs. sponsored)
· Final approval on all applications for funding of specific actions
The
European Commission Officer is Colette Maloney.
2.1 The
Contract
The
ECVision contract is a single-contractor contract between the European
Commission and CAPTEC Ltd. The contract
is a standard Concerted Action and Thematic Network contract.
This
means that there are no other contractors, associate contractors, or
sub-contractors. This is why members
didn’t have to prepare and sign a Form A6 and this is why no budget is
allocated a priori to any of the members.
We
adopted this approach for two reasons.
First, it allowed us to meet the deadlines for the preparation of the
contract in December. Secondly, it
means the procedures for claiming costs are faster and simpler than would have
otherwise been the case (see below).
2.2 The
Membership Agreement
To
participate in the network, a member only has to complete and sign the standard
Commission membership agreement. Note
well, however, that the bi-lateral ECVision contract between the Commission and
CAPTEC is an annex to the membership agreement so that everything which is
stated and agreed in the contact applies equally and fully to the membership
agreement. This includes both the
allocation of budget to the various ECVision activities and the relative
distribution of costs between the coordinator and the members.
The Membership Agreement is
retrospectively active to the start of the contract if it is signed within the first three months. Otherwise it is active on the date of the last signature.
When
it comes to the funding for specific actions as set out in Section 9.1.1.3,
p.22, of the workplan (Annex 1 of the contract), there will have to be an
additional agreement that will be signed by both CAPTEC and the member. We are working on the wording of this
agreement at present to ensure that, in the unlikely event that the member
fails to deliver on their undertakings in the agreement, CAPTEC is not liable
for any of the costs it reimburses during the course of the action nor for the
advance payment on labour costs (note that travel and other costs are handled
differently from labour costs; see below).
2.3 The Budget
Only
four types of costs are eligible for reimbursement under a Thematic Network
contract:
Consumables are not allowable expenses under this contract.
Costs are reimbursed in two distinct ways:
1. Travel, Computing, and Other costs are reimbursed to the member directly by CAPTEC.
2. Labour costs are reimbursed by the Commission to the member, via the prime contractor, following submission and acceptance of the consolidated six-monthly cost statement and after payment of the cost statement.
Claims for travel, computing, and other costs can be submitted to CAPTEC at any time and will be reimbursed by euro bank draft within one calendar month.
Cost statements must be submitted every six months.
An advance payment of 40% on all labour costs will be forwarded to any relevant member (this applies both to Area Leaders and to members who are awarded funding for specific actions).
Overheads of 20% will be paid to members on all labour costs. No overheads will be paid on travel, computing, and other costs which are reimbursed directly by CAPTEC
No costs will be reimbursed unless the member has completed, signed, and submitted the Membership Agreement.
The following tables outline the budget of the project.
|
Some Baseline Data |
|
|
Number of network meetings per year |
2 |
|
Number of area coordination meetings per year |
2 |
|
Maximum travel cost per meeting per member (see below) |
€750 |
|
|
|
|
Number of specific actions per target area per year |
4 |
|
Expected labour cost per specific action |
€4500 |
|
Expected travel cost per specific action |
€750 |
|
Expected other cost per specific action |
€750 |
|
Notional Budget per Target Area |
||||||
|
|
|
Year 1 |
Year 2 |
Year 3 |
Total |
% of
Total |
|
Coordination |
|
€ |
€ |
€ |
€ |
|
|
Personnel |
|
15600 |
15600 |
15600 |
46800 |
|
|
Travel |
|
3000 |
3000 |
3000 |
9000 |
|
|
Computing |
|
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
|
|
Other |
|
1000 |
1000 |
1000 |
3000 |
|
|
Sub-Total |
|
19600 |
19600 |
19600 |
58800 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Specific Actions |
|
€ |
€ |
€ |
€ |
|
|
Personnel |
|
18000 |
18000 |
18000 |
54000 |
|
|
Travel |
|
3000 |
3000 |
3000 |
9000 |
|
|
Computing |
|
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
|
|
Other |
|
3000 |
3000 |
3000 |
9000 |
|
|
Sub-Total |
|
24000 |
24000 |
24000 |
72000 |
|
|
Total for Target Area |
43600 |
43600 |
43600 |
130800 |
13.3 |
|
|
Six-Monthly Meetings |
||||||
|
|
|
Year 1 |
Year 2 |
Year 3 |
Total |
% of
Total |
|
|
|
€ |
€ |
€ |
€ |
|
|
Travel |
Members |
90000 |
60000 |
60000 |
210000 |
|
|
Travel |
Invited Speakers |
4000 |
4000 |
4000 |
12000 |
|
|
Other |
Proceedings |
4800 |
3200 |
3200 |
11200 |
|
|
Other |
Facilities |
3000 |
2000 |
2000 |
7000 |
|
|
Other |
Subsistence |
6000 |
4000 |
4000 |
14000 |
|
|
Total |
|
107800 |
73200 |
73200 |
254200 |
25.9 |
|
Network Coordination |
||||||
|
|
|
Year 1 |
Year 2 |
Year 3 |
Total |
% of
Total |
|
|
|
€ |
€ |
€ |
€ |
|
|
Personnel |
|
57300 |
33900 |
33900 |
125100 |
|
|
Travel |
|
7500 |
7500 |
7500 |
22500 |
|
|
Computing |
|
1000 |
1000 |
1000 |
3000 |
|
|
Other |
|
2500 |
2500 |
2500 |
7500 |
|
|
Total |
|
68300 |
44900 |
44900 |
158100 |
16.1 |
|
Information Infrastructure |
||||||
|
|
|
Year 1 |
Year 2 |
Year 3 |
Total |
% of
Total |
|
|
|
€ |
€ |
€ |
€ |
|
|
Personnel |
|
18000 |
9000 |
9000 |
36000 |
|
|
Travel |
|
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
|
|
Computing |
|
3000 |
3000 |
3000 |
9000 |
|
|
Other |
|
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
|
|
Total |
|
21000 |
12000 |
12000 |
45000 |
|
|
Total for Target Area |
21000 |
12000 |
12000 |
45000 |
4.6 |
|
|
Summary |
||||||
|
|
|
Year 1 |
Year 2 |
Year 3 |
Total |
% of Total |
|
|
|
€ |
€ |
€ |
€ |
|
|
Overall Total |
|
371500 |
304500 |
304500 |
980500 |
100.0 |
|
20% overheads |
|
74300 |
60900 |
60900 |
196100 |
|
|
Final Total |
|
445800 |
365400 |
365400 |
1176600 |
|
3. Guidelines for
Claims for Travel, Computing, and Other Costs
Travel, Computing, and Other Costs may be claimed by completing a
standard claim form which will be available on the ECVision website. All
claims must be accompanied by appropriate supporting documentation (receipts,
paid invoices, etc.).
3.1 Travels Costs
Travel costs relate to the cost of transportation, accommodation,
and subsistence expenses incurred in connection with an ECVision-related trip,
such as attendance at the six-monthly network meeting, visiting a member site
as part of a specific action or as part of an area coordination meeting. In this respect, the following guidelines
apply:
·
The travel
costs of only one participant per group is allowable; if a group
wants to send more than one person, then ECVision will reimburse costs up to
the limit of €750 (see below).
·
More
than one person per institute is allowed if they are in different
laboratories/groups (in this case, they are deemed to be separate
members) but the general rule is one person per group.
·
The
maximum cost per trip per group/laboratory is €750 (to include all travel, subsistence, and
accommodation; cf. p. 22 of Annex 1 of the contract; additional funding may be
made available in exceptional circumstances subject to prior written
approval).
·
The
maximum allowable subsistence rate per day is the same as the normal
Commission allowance of €150
per day and subject to the same rules.
·
Members may send delegates to meetings if
they are unable to attend.
3.2 Computing
Costs
Computing costs include the costs resulting from the use of computer
services and media at the disposal of the member in question. They must be substantiated.
3.3 Other Specific
Costs
Other specific costs include
· “cost relating to the supply, and to the
preparation and selection work, e.g. in the event of exchange of reference
materials and products between participants”
· cost of organizing meetings (excluding
personnel costs, travel costs)
· cost of publication of information
concerning work carried out in ECVision
· direct costs related to setting up of
financial guarantees
As always, these costs must be substantiated.
4. Cost statements
A consolidated cost statement must be submitted every six
months. This short claim period will
help ensure that members get reimbursed for labour costs as quickly as
possible.
Consolidated cost statements are submitted to the Commission by
the coordinator on the basis of individual cost statements submitted by each
member. Cost statements must include
all costs incurred.
A (standard) model cost statement will be available on the
ECVision website (Annex II, Part E1).
5. Procedure for
Application for Membership
Membership is open to all research groups and
companies in Europe (EU, affiliated states and candidate countries). Groups
which are active in the area of cognitive computer vision can become members of
the network through submission of an application to the Network
Coordinator. This application will then
be evaluated by the Executive Committee and acceptance or rejection will be
recommended, as appropriate.
All partners in existing IST cognitive vision
projects are automatically eligible for membership and their applications don’t
have to be evaluated by the Executive Committee
5.2 Membership
and the Membership Agreement
In cases where there is more than one group or
laboratory or whatever in the one legal organization (e.g. a university)
we require just one membership agreement, signed by that legal
organization. This means that a single membership number is assigned to
that legal institution. However, if we have more than one member in that
organization and they are in different groups, departments,
laboratories, or institutes then we treat them individually and allow expenses
to be claimed by each group/member. Thus, we can have several members
listed under the one membership number and each one is included in the list of
members. This is exactly what we have done since the beginning with Leeds
University, Oxford University, KTH, INRIA, and the Technical University of Vienna,
and now more recently with Joanneum Research.
Applications for participation in network activities
should as a minimum include information corresponding to the EU Membership
Agreement and a summary of group activities, i.e.:
6. Membership Status
and Procedures for Review of Status
There are two types of membership:
1. Ordinary Member
2. Sponsored Member
The type of membership assigned to a member depends on their level of
activity in the network. Sponsored Member status is assigned to those members who have
demonstrated their willingness and ability to contribute significantly to the
work of the network. Ideally, all members should have Sponsored
Member status. Only sponsored members
will be eligible to apply for limited (partial) sponsorship of their activities
by the network. In the first instance,
a small number of Sponsored Members will be identified and specific actions
derived from the workplan will be agreed.
Note that all members will receive sufficient sponsorship to allow at
least one representative to attend a six-monthly network meeting (typically €1.5k per year).
The Coordinator and the Area Leaders are automatically assigned
Sponsored Membership status, in the first instance.
6.2 Review
of Membership Status
The activities and performance of all Ordinary and Sponsored Members
will be assessed by the European Commission on a six-monthly basis and their
status will be re-designated on the basis of the member’s performance in the
previous six-month period.
Performance will be assessed primarily on the basis of their
contributions to the network. Bearing
in mind that contributions to the network should be visible and sharable by all
other members, we will adopt a small number of simple metrics based on the
member’s contributions to the Network website (note that all contributions are
moderated by the Network Coordinator):
·
Number of lines
of HTML contributed per month
·
Number of
web-pages contributed per month
·
Number of PDF
pages posted per month
Exceptional contributions and circumstances will also be taken into
consideration.
The assessment scheme will be administered as follows:
1. The Network Coordinator will summarise the performance of each member on the basis of a short submission by the member and on the basis of information provided by the webmaster (including quantitative values for each metric);
2. The Network Coordinator will then forward these summaries to the European Commission, together with a set of recommendations;
3. The European Commission will then decide on any change in membership status;
4. The member will be informed of this decision;
5.
In the event of an appeal, the member or the
Network Coordinator can submit additional data and request a re-examination of
his or her case.
7. Specific Actions:
Application for Funding
Sponsored Members will be eligible to apply for funding by ECVision for well-specified actions which, among other things, contribute directly to the deliverables identified in the workplan.
For the purposes of financial management, notional amounts have been identified for a typical sponsored specific actions and a budget of €6000 has been allocated per action with four actions being funded per year per target area.
Applications for funding by a sponsored member will be administered by the Network Coordinator who will distribute them for review by the Executive Committee. Awards will be made on the recommendations of the relevant Target Area Leaders and subject to a majority agreement by the member of the Executive Committee. Where majority consensus cannot be reached, the Network Coordinator will have the casting vote.
Note: the European Commission Officer must give final approval on all sponsored activities.
The
contract commits the members to the production of many deliverables. However,
the production of deliverables is only one side of the work of ECVision: we
will only be really successful if these deliverables are taken up and used by
the community at large.
Thus,
in measuring our success, there are two aspects to be considered:
It is fairly straightforward to assess the first component. To assess the second component, it is intended to perform annual audits of the incidences of usage or occurrences of cognitive vision systems using the following indicators:
·
Number
of modules/courses being delivered on cognitive computer vision.
·
Number
of M.Sc. and Ph.D. students working on theses in the area of cognitive computer
vision.
·
Number
of industrial applications incorporating some aspect of cognitive computer
vision.
·
Number
of conference and journal papers addressing some issue in cogntive computer
vision.
·
Number
of RTD projects active in the area of cognitive computer vision systems.
·
Number
of text-books on cognitive computer vision
·
Number
of research books of cognitive computer vision
·
Number
of sessions in conferences devoted to cognitive computer vision
At
the beginning, we need to perform a baseline audit of these indicators.
9. List of Deliverables due by Month 6
Research Planning
6 TA1.1.6 Research Planning workshop report
6 TA1.2.6 Research Planning position paper
6 TA1.3 Advances in computer vision
6 TA1.4 Advances in artificial intelligence
6 TA1.5.6 White paper on cognitive vision research
6 TA1.6 Benchmark applications
Education and Training
6 TA2.1 Survey of existing courses on
cognitive computer vision
6 TA2.2 Web-based repository of existing
courseware and/or course slides
6 TA2.3 Web-based repository of M.Sc. and
Ph.D. project proposals
7 TA2.8.6 Annual summer school on cognitive vision systems
Information Dissemination
3 TA3.1.3 Electronic newsletter
6 TA3.2.6 Database of existing relevant publications
6 TA3.3.6 Annotated bibliography of literature, with summary papers
Industrial Liaison
6 TA4.2.6 Directory
of vision vendors, indexed by application, product type, deployed technology,
industrial sector
6 TA4.3.6 Database
of application-motivated R&D problems and information on successful and
unsuccessful approaches to solutions
6 TA4.4.6 List of techniques and their usefulness (or not) in certain classes of problems
Information Infrastructure
3 SA1.1 CSCW infrastructure operational
3 SA1.2 Website core structure implemented –
content to be added incrementally
Management
6 SA2.1 Periodic management report