Welcome to Smolenice

We are honoured to extend this welcome address for the first event of the BENEFIT Concerted Action on behalf of the Programme, Organising, and BENEFIT Steering Committees. Through the common effort of many people involved in BENEFIT we have succeeded in building a unique program for the meeting in southern Slovakia and in Vienna. The programme well adheres to the main mission and objectives of the Concerted Action, and comprises the workshop, which is followed by two one-day special sessions.

The technical programme of the workshop has been built by the programme committee from 90 submissions. This constitutes a substantial increase over the pioneering and successful workshop held in Cracow and Gliwice in October, 1993. Several distinguished scientists have agreed to deliver invited talks. The overwhelming interest in the workshop has motivated us to use posters in a more active way than usual.

The Special days following the workshop have different goals, complementary to the workshop. The Day "On Co-operation" will build a necessary methodological basis for establishing common trans-European projects and will monitor the first experiences in doing so. The Technology Transfer Day is aimed at establishing contacts between participants from Central and Eastern European countries and western small or medium enterprises. This Day is organised in co-operation with the Austrian Computer Society in Vienna.

The Smolenice castle offers perfect conditions for encouraging attendees to interactions in unusual settings. What is expected now, is the participants' initiative. Spontaneous Round Table discussions will be most welcome.

Elena Gramatova's team of organisers from Bratislava has done a splendid job. We thank all of them. Further, our thanks are addressed to the Commission of European Communities, and in particular to Klaus Woelcken for support enabling many contributors to attend the workshop.

We wish all participants a highly rewarding, and worthwhile technical forum for building east-west bridges of scientific and technical collaboration.

Adam Pawlak - General Chair
Michal Servit - Workshop Programme Chair
Manfred Horvat - Co-operation Day Programme Chair
Kurt Judmann - Industrial Day Programme Chair

The event comprises three complementary parts:

* the Workshop on DESIGN METHODOLOGIES FOR MICROELECTRONICS on September 11 - 13, 1995

The aim of the workshop is to present and discuss research results and their applications, to support and accelerate a pan-European exchange of ideas, to confront research directions undertaken by its participants, additionally stimulated by lectures given by invited experts, identify challenging problems providing possibilities for a fruitful collaboration, and discover potential partners for common projects.

* the SPECIAL DAY ON CO-OPERATION on September 14, 1995

This special session gives a concise introduction to the RTD Programmes of the European Union, their guiding principles, objectives and contents, as well as their operational characteristics and practical organisation. Special focus will be on methodological and technical issues essential for European collaborative research: preparation of proposals, setting up a project consortium managerial approaches, methods and tools for transnational research projects. In addition, presentations of case studies by experienced project co-ordinators from different programmes will provide insight into the everyday problems of this challenging development of research in Europe.

* the VIENNA INDUSTRIAL DAY on September 15, 1995

The objective of the Vienna Industrial Day is to initiate east-west co-operation between CEE research institutes and companies and Austrian and other EU undertakings. To achieve this objective, CEE researchers will present resources and infrastructures, research and development capacities as well as actual technologies and research results ready for dissemination and exploitation.