More than twenty European universities and research institutes have joined forces in a network to coordinate their research activities in the field of innovative design methods for the develop­ment of embedded real-time systems. This network, ARTIST - Advanced Real-Time Systems, is funded by the European Commission under the contract number IST-2001-34820. There is a special focus on

hard real-time systems,component-based design and development, andadaptive real-time systems for QoS mangement.

OFFIS is in­volved in the first two fields.

The idea of ARTIST is to coordinate the R&D effort to improve awareness of academics and industry in the area, especially about existing innovative results and technologies, standards and regulations and to define innovative and relevant work directions, identify obstacles to scientific and technological progress and propose adequate strategies for circumventing them.

The work directions are:

Establish a roadmap mapping future directions in advanced real-time systems,Proposing curricula for Education and Training in advanced real-time systems,Dissemination and International Collaboration,Creating strong two-way ties with industry.