Optical networking research in Europe

The Information Society Technologies (IST) programme is part of the Fifth Framework for Research of the European Union, and provides funding for research over the period 1998-2002. The programme covers a very wide area of objectives and topics and is structured as four inter-related key actions, namely: systems and services for the citizen; new methods of work and e-commerce; multimedia contents and tools; essential technologies and infrastructure. In addition, two supporting actions are defined: future and emerging technologies; research networking. Research on optical technologies and networks (Houghton, 2001) is covered in a number of areas. This paper describes the current active research projects for optical networks and components.